
Class 33 \&11 
Book_.fWl- 



GoRvri^lu N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSFT. 




CHARLES ROBERT .MORRISON. 



Greatness of Little Things 



By 

Charles Robert Morrison 



» 



Printed for the Chaddock Boys' School and Home 

Quincy, Illinois 

by 

The Western Methodist Book Concern 

Cincinnati 



,* 

s 






^3R£SS 

MAR 11 1905 

}ouyrnr<H ti;try 

CI XXc. Noi 
/// XV / 

Y b. 



COPYRIGHT, 1905 

BY 

CHARLES ROBERT MORRISON 



To 

Chaddock Boys' School and Home, 

Quincy, Illinois, 

This Book is Dedicated. 



V. 



INTRODUCTION. 

By Mrs. Lucy Rider Meyer. 

History is full of the overwhelming importance 
of little things. They are the hinges upon which 
turn doors of opportunity and destiny. Turning 
points in the lives of men and nations are generally 
the ordinary every-day and commonplace events 
and things of life, yet are affairs, simple in them- 
selves, which 

"Taken at their flood lead on to fortune." 

It was a little thing that detained the young Lin- 
coln a minute on the streets of New Orleans where 
he saw a slave market. "If I ever get a chance to 
hit that thing, I '11 hit it hard," he said, and there 
was a great war and four millions of human beings 
were emancipated. It was a little moment, — the one 
in which Luther arose from his knees, after toiling 
painfully up the sacred stairway in Rome, saying, 
"The just shall live by faith." But from that mo- 
ment he walked down to a soul-enslaved people, and 
the Reformation began. A little child was born and 
laid in a manger, in a little Judean town, and the 

5 



6 Introduction. 

whole world swung toward the light. It is God's 
plan to use little things in the creation of greatness. 
In so doing, all souls however obscure, all events 
however insignificant, may wait His call to be a part 
of His greatness and glory. 
Chicago, Iu* 



A WORD OF THANKSGIVING. 

By Miss Eleanor Tobie. 

The Chaddock Boys' Home and School, under 
deaconess management, located at Quincy, Illinois, 
is a young institution, scarce four years old, and is 
helping to solve two problems ; namely, what to do 
with a debt-burdened and meagerly attended college, 
and how to save the homeless boys and help them 
to an estate of self-support and manliness. 

The plant is a valuable one, the debt has been 
extinguished, the buildings freshened up and im- 
proved, and now the institution has become a home 
and a school, with one hundred lads from six to 
sixteen years of age, and gives splendid promise of 
usefulness. Nevertheless, this school, without en- 
dowment, has needs, and these unsalaried self-sacri- 
ficing deaconesses, in their heroic efforts in behalf 
of homeless and friendless boyhood, appeal to all 
lovers of humanity and our Christ in their behalf. 

Knowing of these needs, the author of these 
papers wrote the Principal, saying : "Silver and gold 
have I none, but such as I have give I unto thee" — 

7 



8 A Word of Thanksgiving. 

asking permission to dedicate, in a substantial way, 
this little book to the institution. 

The manuscript was read by the Principal to the 
larger boys, and was thoroughly enjoyed by them. 
To be enjoyed by that class which has been wittily 
described by some one as having "five hundred mus- 
cles to wriggle with and not one to sit still with" — 
ought to be appreciated by a far larger circle. 

We have Murray and Meyer and Miller, each of 
whom have written much that is more than "worth 
while." We are glad to add another "M" to the list, 
and publicly express our thanks to the author for 
his gift. 

QUINCY, IU* 



CONTENTS. 

Chapter Page 

I. Little Things that Make for Destiny, 13 

II. Little Things that Make for Char- 
acter, ------ 29 

III. Little Things that Make for Hap- 

piness, 45 

IV. Little Things that Make for Wealth, 63 

V. Little Things that Make for Health, 83 

VI. Little Things that Make for Educa- 
tion, 103 

VII. Possibility of Good from Things Appar- 
ently Evil, 125 

VIII. Possibility of Evil from Things Appar- 

antly Good, - - - - 139 

IX. Lessons Learned Too Late, - - 155 



9 



I. 

Little Things that Make for Destiny. 

'For who has despised the day of small things?' 

— Zech. iv, 10. 



I. 

DESTINY. 

The question of comparative values is an im- 
portant one. How to estimate properly the worth 
or service of one event in comparison with another, 
how to form a just judgment of the relation of one 
atom or truth or fact to another, can not be perma- 
nently determined. 

Values change with the changes of time and cir- 
cumstances and conditions. That which was ad- 
justed yesterday, in the scale of relative importance, 
may to-morrow rise in value or become of little 
worth. Hence, he is reckless who undertakes to 
classify in order all the events or forces of human 
life, despising the one and exalting the other accord- 
ing to his judgment, finite and limited as it is. 

The possibilities of good or of evil in any act 
or actor can not be divined By other than Divinity 
itself. The far-reaching influence of a word or a 
deed is limited by the horizon of the finite one, while 
great expectations have been subjected to sore dis- 
appointment. That which cost time and thought 
and treasure, that which occupied the attention of a 

x 3 



14 Greatness of Little Things 

nation and stirred into activity the forces of an ener- 
getic people, may have soon subsided and assumed 
its proper place in history as only a ripple on the 
placid sea of human interest. 

But what momentous events have been recorded 
whose beginnings could scarce be traced, so insig- 
nificant were they! History is crowded with facts 
illustrative of this truth. Scientific discoveries are 
due largely to simple hints, which to an unobservant 
mind would never have been heeded. As the whole 
realm of nature, of mental activity, of spirit-life, 
passes in review before us, how large do "small 
things" appear ! 

If, then, these little things with which we have 
to do conceal within them such possibilities, is it 
not wise for us to reconsider from time to time our 
former estimate of their values, — look, indeed, upon 
perfection and magnitudes as having been made up 
from, or the outgrowth of, the minute and simple 
things of nature and of life ? 

Horace Bushnell said: "God descends to an in- 
finite detail, and builds a little universe in the small- 
est things. He carries on a process of growth in 
every tree and flower and living thing. He is as 
careful to finish the mote as the planet, both because 
it consists only with His perfection to finish every- 
thing, and because the perfection of His greatest 



That Make eor Destiny. 15 

structures is the result of perfection in their smallest 
parts or particles. On this patience of detail rests 
all the glory and order of the created universe, spir- 
itual and material." 

If, then, God does not trifle, how can man, His 
supreme work on earth, consider any item or atom 
of His creation, or any law or event of His order- 
ing, as insignificant, and despise its day or its deed ? 

1. Value oe Surroundings. 

Things material and things immaterial are 
moved, shaped, influenced by little things surround- 
ing. If, as it has been said, we are largely the crea- 
tures of circumstances, how can we be indifferent to 
those things that harm us, or negligent of those that 
make for our growth and development? A page in 
Herbert Spencer's great work, "Synthetic Phi- 
losophy," contained a picture. It was a simple thing, 
and yet it suggested a great question. It was an im- 
perfect leaf, curled and deformed, because it grew 
too near a branch of the tree and was denied space 
and light and motion. Its companions were large 
and well-developed and beautiful. Not so this hap- 
less one. 

"What does that mean?" I inquired of the stu- 
dent. "The effect of environment," he responded. 
From this illustration the author proceeds to show 



16 Greatness of Little Things 

that natural objects and man and nations are ef- 
fected, shaped, molded by surroundings. Where a 
man lives may determine what he is or what he 
may be. 

The dwellers among the mountains are more in- 
dependent and fearless than those whose view of life 
is clouded by the density of the forest. "Backwoods- 
man" is a term descriptive of surroundings. Take 
his children to the broad expanse of the prairie, let 
them catch the inspiration of mountain height, or 
feel through youth and manhood the breath of old 
ocean's ceaseless swell, and a different class of hu- 
man beings will result therefrom. 

Surround the child with an atmosphere of nar- 
rowness, or with the inspiration of lofty vision, and 
it will be more or less the creature of circumstances. 
It is also true that, by other and greater motives, the 
boy may become the creator of circumstances, turn 
narrowness into benevolence, change local condi- 
tions to unlimited influence ; or else blight the kindly 
spirit of sympathy, bring sorrow where joy dwelt, 
and by sin break a mother's heart, and be over- 
whelmed with condemnation. 

2. Influences of the Past. 

That which modifies, counteracts, and influences 
the more positive and powerful things of the present, 



That Make for Destiny. 17 

as they surround us and make us know of their pres- 
ence by their constant contact, are the little and yet 
large things of the past. 

Our names connect us with generations that have 
ceased to live, and yet who live in us far more than 
we are willing to admit. Our speech perpetuates 
a language replete with thoughts, opinions, ideas, 
not our own in originality, — ours only by heredity. 
Try to escape it as we may, the shadow or the light 
of the past is here with us in the life of the present. 

Because of the cosmopolitan spirit of our age, 
it is no uncommon thing for an East Indian student 
to find his way into an Anglo-Saxon civilization ; a 
Japanese to find a home and a companion in an 
American Commonwealth. The effect of study, 
travel, religion, social customs, may harmonize the 
extremes of a world-wide origin and of a long- 
distant past with the life and thought and feeling of 
the present. Yet the influence of the past, whatever 
the surroundings of the present may be, whether we 
will it or not, has its decided effect upon the life of 
to-day ; for it is in the blood, in the brain, in the 
heart. Change of dress, change of speech, change of 
religion even, adoption of new methods of domestic 
comfort and business life, preference for different 
means and measures for human happiness, will not 
utterly cut us off from the influence of the long 1 line 



1 8 Greatness of Little Things 

of deeds, words, thoughts, born and nurtured in 
the ages of the past. 

3. Effects of Things to Come. 

But the civilization of the present is not the sum- 
total of the things of to-day, nor yet of the civil- 
izations of the past, mighty and powerful as those 
"small things" are that enter into life and character. 

We catch the breeze of a coming day. If the 
ideal did not readjust itself and expand on the com- 
ing of the morrow, we should soon cease to plan, to 
strive, and would be content with the measure of 
each day's work done or attempted. 

The coming season compels plan. The reforma- 
tion needed gives hope to righteous endeavor. What 
life would be with this improvement and with that, 
enters into our thought, our conversation, our choice 
of companions and fellow-associates. The vision 
of a better state and condition of affairs universally 
pervades and influences the present. 

But pass beyond the limits of the immediate fu- 
ture, and note the effect of eternity upon the things 
of time. There is a power that sustains and blesses, 
that builds up and makes strong this present life 
that comes to us from the endless life. If to-morrow 
we die, and death ends all, how different all life 
would be ! The beasts of the field, the birds of the 



That Make for Destiny. 19 

air, the insects of the day and of the hour, live to 
better purpose, from instinct, than would man, with 
highest possibilities of vigorous thought, if there 
comes not to him the knowledge or the assurance, 
or even the hope, of a future life. "To eat and drink 
and be merry," would be the universal creed and 
practice if to-morrow death put an end to all. The 
merriment of a limited life would be tinged with the 
sadness of abandonment if in this life only we had 
hope. 

So, add the effect upon us of a future life, to 
the influence of the past, and the hard lines of the 
definite and conscious present will be modified, and 
we become less and less the helpless creatures of cir- 
cumstances, and more and more the creators and 
modifiers of all that surrounds us. 

4. The Inner Life. 

How great and how serious life becomes when 
we consider the conflicting forces of the things 
present, the antagonistic influences of the things of 
the past, the uncertainties of future days and years 
and realms, — all of these little things centering 
within us, producing another set of emotions that 
have so much to do with human life. The things 
we think about, those things we love or hate, the 
judgments we form, the words we speak, the life we 



20 Greatness of Little Things 

live, — all these, small as they may be, concern us 
infinitely. 

Judgments that are formed upon insufficient 
knowledge ; based upon limited observation ; influ- 
enced by personal feelings ; circumscribed by narrow 
views; expressions that fix our relation to others, 
that are the exponent and representation of our 
convictions, — "little things," we say, yet so effective 
and sometimes so destructive upon human life. 
''Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are 
the issues of life." "Out of the heart of man pro- 
ceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication, murders, 
thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lascivious- 
ness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all 
these things come from within and defile the man." 
Yes, and our Lord said also, "Blessed are the pure 
in heart for they shall see God." As the fountain is, 
so shall the stream be. If the issue, the result of life, 
is ever to be foreknown, its prophecy may be read in 
the condition of the heart. But is the condition of 
this inner man dependent upon the things of the 
present, the things of the past, and on the things of 
the future? 

5. The: World Beneath. 

There is an element of evil that must be con- 
sidered in the consideration of the forces with which 



That Make; for Destiny. 21 

one must deal in the development of character: 
"Things also from beneath." 

Such things do not overwhelm the soul with an 
irresistible avalanche of destruction, but with cun- 
ning, with subtlety, with deceit, with false promises ; 
by agencies least formidable or foreboding; the little 
things despised because of their insignificance, yet 
fearful in their results, — these are the forces and the 
methods of the things from beneath. 

They are not to be ignored. They are not always 
easily discerned. The livery of heaven may be 
chosen in which to serve Satan. Wars, tumults, 
strifes, seditions, having some object of good in 
view, may be excused and condoned, yet nevertheless 
are born of the things that are from beneath. 

Not a sorrow known in all the world but had its 
origin from beneath. Not a tear but can be traced 
to that active agency, that has made and is making 
such havoc in this world of ours. Despise not the 
day, the hour, the moment, when there come to 
you suggestions, intimations, inducements from the 
dark underworld of evil. For by our light esteem, 
our indifferent attitude to these "little things," come 
the horrors of death. 
6. Things from Above. 

Our hope is not from within, nor of the present 
or past, nor indeed of the future, blissful as we may 



22 Greatness of Little Things 

imagine it to be, — surely not from beneath. The 
little things that have to do with life come from 
every source, from all directions. This central life 
is swayed by breezes from every land, from every 
clime. He has not begun to live who does not realize 
the seriousness of life, who has not learned that pres- 
sure and influence are exerted upon him from vari- 
ous quarters. Independent and free as he is, man is 
yet subject to impressions, persuasions, allurements, 
weighty and powerful, although apparently insig- 
nificant and trivial. 

Into that life may come also, if allowed, a Better 
Life, a Spirit of love and light from above, to re- 
form, to re-establish, to rebuild for time and eter- 
nity. Despise not thou the day of the coming of 
a still small voice, for God may be in that voice. 
Can such change the being within, dominate and 
conquer those things without, make helpful the 
things of the past, rearrange the plans of the future, 
drive back into the bottomless pit the demons of de- 
struction from beneath, and make peaceful and per- 
fect the soul itself? It is because we have despised 
the day of small things that such unbelief possesses 
us. The destruction of sin, the salvation of the soul, 
the revelation of the Father, and an example of a 
sincere and pure soul in a world of deceit and vile- 
ness, was the object of God's coming into this world 



That Make for Destiny. 23 

in the person of Jesus Christ. Like unto the influ- 
ences of the things about, beyond, beneath, behind, 
the things from above come quietly ; "come not 
with observation;" come to influence, not to over- 
whelm ; and because we do not know how sensitive, 
how delicate, how easily affected is this being within 
us called a soul, we esteem lightly, if not despise, 
the agency, the influence, and the day of small things. 
Open thou the windows of thy soul, let in the life, 
the light, the love that comes from above, and then 
down into this lowly abode will come the Higher 
Spirit, to germinate, develop, and to grow, bringing 
forth blossom and fruit for another world. Each 
holy thought, each breath of prayer for better things, 
each belief in a promised blessing, each kindly word, 
is so much toward strength and beauty of character, 
multiplied a thousand times because God is in the 
thought and the deed. "Not by might nor by power, 
but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." God 
was not in the great and strong wind that rent the 
mountains before Elijah. Neither was the Lord in 
the mighty quaking of the earth. Nor was He yet 
in the direful conflagration that burned so fiercely in 
the sight of the prophet. But after the storm and 
earthquake and the fire, there came a still small 
voice. There was power in the voice. It brought 
the prophet out from the darkness of the cave, out 



*4 Greatness of Little Things 

of his fear and his anguish, out into the presence 
of duty and his Lord. Things from above ! How 
much needed in our world! They come as fast as 
we make room for them, and, by their coming, keep 
out things from beneath, sweeten things present, 
glorify things to come. 

Said a great artist: "One ought to see at least 
one good picture each day, hear one pure sweet song, 
say a few reasonable words daily, and thereby be 
all the better for the day." How many servants to 
help us may we have, if we will ! They may be 
little, but, being many, make quick work. How 
many hard masters we may serve, if we so choose! 
Which shall it be, serve or be served ? If we seek to 
serve the highest and the noblest, we shall in turn 
be served, because we have thus allied ourselves with 
Him who has put all things in subjection to Him. 
If our talents are few and small, all the greater 
reason for diligence and activity in their employ- 
ment. If we had ten talents, we would have ten 
times the responsibility resting upon us that comes 
as a burden to the neighbor possessing but one 
talent. If we do not seek to increase the talent God 
has given us, would we be more faithful with the 
larger treasure of time and talent and opportunity? 

The combination and co-operative services of the 
marine insect builds for us the coral reef. "All at it, 



That Make for Destiny. 25 

and always at it." So the mighty task is done by 
these mites of feebleness, in the multiplied moments 
of time. 

Systematic persistence is needed in the material 
and intellectual world. So great do small things 
become, that we might well tremble at the thought of 
any word expressed, or deed done, or influence ex- 
erted. Prayer for Divine guidance is absolutely 
needed to be able to make the most of life. "The 
steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord;" 
"When a man's ways please the Lord, He maketh 
even his enemies to be at peace with Him." 

The mighty forces of the universe are, after all, 
quiet — combinations of minute things that hold in 
even balance magnitudes of infinite value. The hu- 
man soul is subject to a multitude of forces seeking 
to sway it, having an influence one way or another. 
These forces are often small in ordinary estimation, 
yet are not to be despised. They are all about us, 
are the circumstances of our every-day life, making 
or marring our happiness. They come also from the 
past, constant reminders of other days, of a time 
beyond our time, and must be made to adjust them- 
selves with the present or become anarchists and out- 
laws, destructive of present peace and order. They 
are met by the forces from the future, the aspirations 
and hopes and dreams of better times and better 



26 Greatness of Little Things 

things and a brighter civilization. But all these enter 
the crucible of the inner consciousness, and, accord- 
ing to the will of him who lives within, there comes 
forth a belief, an opinion, a judgment, right or 
wrong, as the dross or the pure truth has been ac- 
cepted or rejected. 

From beneath, waging warfare upon the forces 
from above, secretly, stealthily come spirits to deal 
with spirit life. In the center of all these conflicting, 
antagonist'c oppositions, the life of every individual 
soul exists. 

Woe, then, to him who, witnessing the marshal- 
ing of these forces under mighty leadership, shuts 
his eyes to the result and despises the day and the 
deed of small things! 

" What will it matter in a little while 

That for a day 
We met and gave a word, a touch, a smile, 

Upon the way? 
These trifles ! Can they make or mar 

Human life? 
Are souls as lightly swayed as rushes are 

By love or strife ? 
Yea, yea ; a look the fainting heart may break 

Or make it whole, 
And just one word, if said for love's sweet sake, 

May save a soul." 



II. 

Little Things that Make for Character. 

"My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some 
great thing, wouldst thou not have done it?" — 
2 Kings v, 13. 



II. 

CHARACTER. 

Consider the words of kindly caution and of 
well-merited rebuke spoken by the servant of the 
leprous Naaman, who, seeking a remedy for his dis- 
eased condition from the prophet Elisha, refused, in 
a rage, to follow the simple condition : "My father, 
if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, 
wouldst thou not have done it?" 

Thy disease is loathsome, but thy pride, thy false 
notion of the use and benefit of great things, is still 
more to be loathed. Rise above the narrowness and 
bigotry and blindness of thy soul life, and find hope 
and health, not alone in the waters of Jordan, but 
in the clear, pure air of submission, of obedience, 
and faith in God. He had wealth in abundance; 
would not some great gift be better than some little 
act? He had great power; would not some exhi- 
bition of that power upon the enemies of Elisha's 
God be more acceptable than a surrender of self? 

The world is always overestimating "great 
things," undervaluing simple things. Those things 
that are really great, which hide their greatness from 

29 



30 Greatness of Little Things 

us by their very unappreciated and unrecognized 
nearness, are often passed over, in the vain effort 
of mankind to do the "great thing," as men note 
greatness. 

To that large circle of King's Daughters Mrs. 
Bottome has written: "The best things are always 
within reach." 

Study that statement. Let it have the closest 
scrutiny and the largest application. "The best 
things are always within reach." These best things, 
then, must be little things, and these little things 
must make for greatness, here or hereafter. 

Is wealth beyond our reach? Perhaps wealth 
may not be best for us. Is health gone — gone so 
far that, even with effort and expense and care, we 
seem not to be able to reach and recover it? Then 
there may be a discipline in patient resignation, that 
will sweeten life and brighten hope of heaven, in the 
very experience through which the soul is dragged 
by a disease-strickened body. 

"Godliness with contentment is gain" — great 
gain. He who looks upon life in this lowly sphere 
as a state or condition whose highest end is self, will 
fail miserably in securing permanent blessedness. 

Why are we here? What purpose had God in 
our creation ? Why were we separated from Infinite 
Being into individual and personal existences? 



That Maris K)R Character. 31 

Surely not for bodily or physical pleasure. Not 
for intellectual delights and the higher forms of 
mental intoxication. Not to amass wealth, or achieve 
fame, or secure and exercise power and authority 
over others — gratify our pride and ambition. Surely 
not, when life is so brief ; and, by so doing, mislead 
others who might also feel that they, too, were here 
for the same purpose. We could not all be kings 
or queens, else who would be subjects and serve? 
Our wealth would be little worth if all were mil- 
lionaires. Truly some wise and universal reason 
may be found to account for conscious existence in 
a world of material things — to justify the fact most 
evident of all facts, and yet most marvelous of all, 
that of human life. There is a response to that 
question that will be full and complete and satisfac- 
tory to all the children of men, in its application. 

"Why are we here in this life ?" 

Answer: "We are here to glorify God and to en- 
joy Him forever." 

That 's the stately answer of the Catechism — 
the condensed statement of the thought of devout 
scholarship of all ages. 

To enjoy life and God is to bring to Him the 
product, the developed form, of that which He has 
given to us. The most that we can get out of life, 
and the most that we can make of it, is summed up 



32 Greatness of Little Things 

in that most descriptive term, Christian Character. 
Could such be acquired elsewhere? It is a question. 
Could we discipline and develop and perfect char- 
acter as outlined in Christ, in any other realm, with- 
out this first preliminary stage of existence, experi- 
ence, contact, and conflict? 

Character, then, for all men, is the goal. By 
it we glorify God, and, because of it, we enjoy 
God and goodness and shall enjoy Ilim forever. 
Much every way hinges on character. 

We may not be rich in material things ; but we 
may have the wealth of character far surpassing the 
power and the possessions of the millionaire. We 
may not have physical strength; but we may have 
health and wholeness in soul strength, that smiles 
and is content in the presence of the athlete and 
acrobat. The one will soon reach a limit, and fail in 
its cunning. The other will increase daily, because 
the outward man must perish ; but the inner man is 
renewed day by day. 

This great thing called character is so simple, so 
easily recognized, so readily attained, while still in 
a state of continued development, by all who will 
it, that its possession may be individually universal. 

Do you, then, like Naaman, desire to do some 
great thing in order to feel and know freedom from 
bondage, deliverance, and conquest in the presence 



That Make for Character. 33 

of spiritual foes, the cleansing of the soul from the 
leprous effects of sin, in order that you may glorify 
God and enjoy Him forever? Be content to do the 
simple things that make for that great thing called 
Character. The materials for the structure are 
near at hand. Build daily. Begin aright; find a 
firm foundation. Begin now, and you will soon note 
progress. By and by your friends will observe it ; 
then strangers can not but remark at what they see 
and feel of strength and beauty and largeness of your 
masterpiece. 

Some begin wrong. They are indifferent as to 
foundations. They are careless as to the choice of 
materials. It is the stranger who is first impressed 
with the appearance of wisdom and wealth and 
strength and attractiveness. He wonders that such 
an exhibition of excellence is not recognized and 
admired in the community where it exists. But, on 
further inspection, he discovers that the wisdom dis- 
played is superficial, the wealth that dazzled is bor- 
rowed, the appearance of strength and beauty is 
veneer or tinsel, and underneath all no foundation, 
but shifting sands. This is well known to acquaint- 
ances, and best known to the man himself. Repu- 
tation is not character. 

This short cut to character is deceptive, and in 
the end most self-destructive. Beware of a cheap 
3 



34 Greatness oi< Little Things 

grade. The best is none too good. If we would 
glorify God and enjoy Him forever; if we would 
make the most of life, let us seek the best ! 

Study with me, then, the little things, the de- 
spised small things, that go to make up character. 
Note wherein you seem to yourself to be deficient. 
Cultivate that especial quality by an act of the will, 
by prayer, by study of God's book of precepts and 
principles, by observation and emulation of those 
men and women whose character you most admire. 
Then, there will be no day without its influence. 

i. Self-Denial. 

The hardest blow must be struck first of all. The 
foundation must be laid on the firmest rock. No 
noble soul gets without giving. Hard as denial of 
self may be, it is always easier to let go than to hold 
on, in the beginnings of the test, before a grip is 
fastened upon the soul by the world and the flesh 
and the devil, as all will testify who have tried both. 

This is an act within our power, this subordina- 
tion of self. We can not take from another, without 
his consent, aught that would enrich us, so easily as 
to give to him from our own store that which he 
needs. The principle of self-sacrifice keeps us in 
touch with helpless humanity, and aids in evening 
up the lot and condition of others, without self- 



That Mark for Character. 35 

impoverishment. Even Christ pleased not Himself, 
chose not to withhold for Himself, when that giving 
and self-denial lifted us, exalted us, to a plane some- 
where along the level of the highest possibilities with 
Himself. 

"In honor preferring one another." 
It is not the gift in itself, whether of time or serv- 
ice or of material possessions, anything that pleases 
and relieves the discomfort or provides for the neces- 
sities of the needy, that most aids and brings the 
best blessings to the giver. These, in a sense, do 
bring satisfaction to the soul, and make true the say- 
ing of our Lord, "It is more blessed to give than 
to receive." But self-denial is absolutely essential 
to largeness of soul-growth, because of the dispo- 
sition it begets within the self -denier of yearning 
sympathy and helpful interest concerning the help- 
less and hopeless ones in the world about him. The 
disposition to make others happy is always fruitful 
and reactive. It counteracts the fatal tendency, so 
common among men of conquest, of overreaching, 
of withholding more than is right, which tendeth to 
poverty. Soul-strength, soul-richness, soul-sweet- 
ness, and a multitude of excellencies, come to keep 
company with the spirit that dwells within of self- 
denial. 

It is begun by a determination to serve. "Take 



36 Greatness of Little Things 

this place;" "Let me do that for you;" "You are 
looking so well;" "I was pleased at what you said;" 
"Let me help you;" "Come with us," — anything, 
everything said and done that is the outgoing of 
self to another ; and by that life of "otherness" comes 
the Christ-life. Herein is the greater truth of our 
Lord, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." 

Can a selfish, grasping, indifferent life result in 
a character that shall glorify God ? How could such 
a soul enjoy God, when every thought, feeling, senti- 
ment, and desire is wrapped up in "me and mine," 
while others in despair are abandoned without care 
or consideration? There must be a dying to self 
before there can be a resurrection to the larger life 
revealed to us in Christ. This, then, is the little- 
large thing that lies within our power to do — that 
may be done, that must be done, in order to develop 
character aright ; namely, Self-denial. 
2. Patience. 

Ruskin says: "Patience lies at the root of all 
pleasures, as well as of all powers. Hope herself 
ceases to be happiness when Impatience companions 
her." Do you get that thought ? Think it over care- 
fully. "Patience lies at the root of all pleasures, as 
well as of all powers. Hope herself ceases to be 
happiness when Impatience companions her." 
Patience may be consistent with energy, with unre- 



That Make for Character. 37 

mitting toil up to the full measure of our strength ; 
but worry weakens, haste to secure or see results 
puts off the culmination of thought and effort, and 
disturbs all that has been done to bring about solid- 
ity, beauty, and perfection. 

"Learn to labor and to wait." The giant oak in 
its earliest stages fretted not because the stalk of 
corn or the sunflower reached up and touched its 
limit in a season, for in a season it also faded away. 

Peevish discontent destroys all chance of making 
the most of conditions and circumstances. Every 
enterprise that has strength, that has permanency, 
has had to be indifferent to time, and allow the com- 
ing of days, and months, and years before its growth 
has fully matured. Every weakness in reformation, 
in discovery, in invention, in social organization, 
may be traced to undue haste in its accomplishment. 
The leaders in astronomical science have held their 
discoveries in abeyance for years, in order to test 
their theories or prove the accuracy of their laws. 
He is strong who is content to plod on, to bide his 
time, to wait the slow coming of the years, for the 
development of thought and purpose, for the accept- 
ance and approval of his work and of himself. Do 
not become impatient ; commit all things to the Lord. 
Let self-denial have a chance, if results are slow 
in coming, that patience may have her perfect work. 



38 Greatness of Little Things 

3. Courage. 

There is opposition to everything. The timid 
soul is easily frightened. The dangers and difficul- 
ties we meet are not so formidable as those we never 
meet, but that threaten us, yet, at our coming, 
vanish from our path. 

Courage comes from conviction, and conviction 
from truth. "First be sure you are right, then go 
ahead." Such progress, however, may cost some- 
thing, but it may be worth all it costs. You may 
lose friends, separate yourself from associations 
otherwise delightful and begin life over again amid 
new scenes and strange surroundings; but if you 
are right, have the courage of your righteousness, 
and move sweetly and steadily on. 

How many souls have lost wealth, lost health, 
lost home and heaven, because they lost courage! 
They were sneered at, threw up their job, quit work, 
took counsel of their fears, and fled in dismay. Boon 
companions enticed to dissipation, could not say 
"No," hesitated, and were lost. 

" Dare to be a Daniel ; 
Dare to stand alone ; 
Dare to have a purpose firm; 
Dare to make it known." 

The quality of this courage is not physical. The 
boy or man is least possessed by it, who, because of 



That Make for Character. 39 

physical strength, overawes his comrades or his 
community by his ferocious power. The gentlest, 
most unassuming, most self-denying, surprises the 
opposition by a dignity and heroism that can not be 
destroyed, even if death itself is the result. How 
essential is this steadfastness, this moral courage, in 
the growth of character! It is a little thing, big 
with results. Without it, character is as a wall of 
untempered mortar. It is defenseless. 

4. Love. 

"Though I speak with the tongue of men and 
of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding 
brass or a clanging cymbal." Love never faileth; 
all else shall cease, of hatred and malice, opposition, 
fame and the pomp and glory of the world; but 
love shall abide forever. He who loves allies him- 
self to God, for God is love. He begins here to 
breathe an atmosphere of that realm and of that 
dispensation for which this is preparatory. It is not 
the love for the lovable alone that ennobles and ex- 
pands the soul. It is a divine vision which sees 
hidden excellencies, that concerns itself with the 
possibilities of good and the probabilities of peril 
in all sorts and conditions of mankind. 

"It suffereth long, and is kind." Men may not 
be wise and bless humanity with their wisdom ; but 



40 Greatness of Little Things 

a loving, tender heart may be possessed by all men, 
and be a blessing always. Material wealth may not 
be possessed, but in slight measure, by the masses; 
but love may be a treasure for all, to keep warm 
the hearthstone when storms beat without, and make 
glad the fatherless and the widow in the rainy day 
of adversity. 

Who can not love? Love children and aged 
ones ; love helpless and sorrowing souls out of their 
helplessness and grief; love flowers and birds and 
sunset skies and truth and God ? Who loves art and 
nature and institutions, and is not made better for 
that appreciation of things beautiful and good and 
true? 

Drummond says : "The greatest thing a man can 
do for his Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of 
His other children." "Much of Christ's life," he 
says, "was spent in doing kind things — in merely 
doing kind things." Kindness, then, is the active 
principle of love, just as patience is the passive. It 
is so easy to say unkind, to do unkind things; but 
it is just as easy to learn how to do and say kind 
things, if we will — and to be kind. 

It is a little thing to love, yet love is the greatest 
of the graces of human character. It sweetens self- 
denial, and makes it easy and delightful. It is the 
staying quality of a believing soul ; it is the crown- 



That Make; for Character. 41 

ing glory of character. If we are asked to do some 
great thing, remember, it is to be done in the doing 
of this simple thing. My brother, my sister, if God, 
by the voice of His Spirit, by the word of truth, 
by the preaching and practice of His children, should 
bid thee do some great thing, and that great thing 
be the building of a character in accord with His 
will, wouldst thou not do it? Do, then, the little 
things that make for character! Use the material 
within your reach, and do it to-day ! 

Be self-denying; 

Be patient ; 

Be courageous ; 

Be kind and loving; 
If there be any other virtue, think on that ; and, 
with Divine help, do it also ! 



III. 

Little Things that Make for Happiness. 

"If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do 
them" — John xiii, 17. 



III. 

HAPPINESS. 

The universal search to-day is for a state or con- 
dition of undisturbed happiness. Men toil and 
scheme, early and late, to secure wealth, in order 
that they may use it for their own happiness and for 
the happiness of others. 

The cultivation of the mind, the accumulation 
of knowledge, has as an incentive the attainment 
of that blissful state of conquest of realms of truth — 
scientific, literary, moral, or philosophic — or power 
to secure the means for personal enjoyment and sat- 
isfaction. 

Let us do this, they say, in order to be "happy." 
Let us go yonder to increase our happiness; or let 
us be this or that, and then we shall be "happy." 
This is the thought, the plan, the conversation of 
multitudes of the restless children of men. 

Can it be found? Is it not like the fitful fire 
of mocking fate, that allures and leads on, and dis- 
appears just as one is about to seize it? Is it not 
at the rainbow's end, somehow associated there with 
the fabled pot of gold ? 

45 



46 Greatness of Little Things 

In childhood, is not happiness somewhere in the 
Grown-up-land? In manhood and womanhood, is 
it not "When I'm married?" "When I've settled 
in business for myself ?" "Have a home of my own 
and can do as I please?" Does not a quiet retreat 
on the sunset side of life, work all done, watching 
the shadows as they "a little longer grow," seem 
to be the place and the time of happiness? Or 
shall we say with the preacher, in his unsuccessful 
search for happiness amid the things of earth and 
time, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit?" Shall 
we, then, conclude that up yonder, away from un- 
certainty, from sin and consequent sorrow ; up yon- 
der, undisturbed, we shall be at rest, shall enter into 
eternal bliss, and not before? 

No. Happiness is not all withheld from us to 
overwhelm us at one fell stroke, and that, when we 

" Have shuffled off this mortal coil." 
It is here. There are in childhood, in youth, in 
maturity, and in old age, seasons of innocent pleas- 
ure, peace, joy, contentment — and their memory 
still abides. 

Some one has said that "the idea has been trans- 
mitted from generation to generation that happiness 
is one large and beautiful precious stone, a single 
gem so rare that all search after it is vain, all effort 
for it hopeless. It is not true. Happiness is a 



That Make i-or Happiness. 47 

mosaic composed of many smaller stones. Each 
taken apart and viewed singly, may be of little value, 
but when all are grouped together and set, they 
form a pleasing and graceful whole — a costly jewel. 
Trample not under foot, then, the little pleasures 
which a gracious Providence scatters in the daily 
path, and which, in eager search after some great 
and exciting joy, we are apt to overlook." 

It is good of our Heavenly Father to place within 
the reach of the poorest and lowliest of His children 
those little things that, even in their poverty and mis- 
fortune, they may claim companionship with the 
king on his throne or the millionaire in his palace, 
in the possession of real pleasure. 

Consider, then, briefly some of the little things 
that make for happiness. 

1. Negatively. 

It might safely be said, indeed, that the entire 
specific clusters about the admonition "not to do," 
instead of "what to do," in order to be happy. How 
easy, then, are the terms upon which this most de- 
sired boon may be secured! 

(a) Do not seek for it. 

What misery attends the vigorous and persistent 
search for happiness ! What a chase does this real 
thing lead one, when it becomes a phantom, after the 



48 Grkatnkss of Little Things 

soul has determined to possess it for its sake alone. 
Sometimes it seems to be within the grasp of the 
seeker. He is envied, flattered, followed ; but, alas ! 
deep in the heart there is anguish and disappoint- 
ment, for a time unknown to the world, but in the 
end disclosed with startling effect. 

"Happiness," said President Nott, "is a shy 
nymph, and if you chase her you will never catch 
her. Do n't try to be happy. Go quietly on in life 
and do your duty, and this shy nymph we call happi- 
ness will come to you of her own accord, by and by." 
Said the Historian Froude : "Happiness is not what 
we are to look for. Let us do right. If, then, happi- 
ness comes, life will be sweet; but if not, it is of no 
mighty matter — life can be borne." This ability to 
bear up in life is happiness. It is the mastery of self 
under adverse circumstances. No greater joy can 
come to a soul in this life beyond the calm repose 
which the consciousness of right will surely bring. 

The serious trouble with us, in our attempt to 
seek happiness, is that we are not wise enough or of 
sufficient strength to avoid the miseries that are just 
a little beyond the state or condition we are seeking. 
"I '11 be content and happy with just one drink," is 
the resolution of the wine-bibber ; but, alas ! misery 
is the other phase of the countenance now turned 
toward him in fiendish mockery. "I '11 taste this 



That Make: for Happiness. 49 

once of stolen waters ;" and in that slippery path the 
feet were unstayed, and the sweetness sought turned 
to wormwood. 

"I '11 make this short cut to wealth," and in the 
deal a multitude of unforeseen robbers rose up to 
wrest from him all that he held dear, and more. 

The search for happiness, so common to man- 
kind, is not only made by unwise means and uncom- 
mon weaknesses, but also with extreme selfish pur- 
poses. Self, self always first. Were it not so, happi- 
ness might more easily be found in the finding of it 
for others. Put self in the background. Make an 
effort to cheer some other sorrowing soul, to discover 
and reveal to others a happy state, and through some 
unexpected door of the heart will come an approv- 
ing, smiling angel, saying, "I must abide with thee, 
for I am found of them who sought me not." 

(b) Do not envy. 

How quickly and how far we drive this spirit of 
a happy life when we brood over, by way of contrast, 
the happy condition or seemingly contented lot of 
others ! The begrudging spirit narrows and con- 
tracts the soul. To envy others brings misery. If 
some of their wealth, some of their skill or cunning 
or culture, some of their friends, were his, the envi- 
ous one would surely reach the desired place of su- 
4 



50 Greatness of Little Things 

preme joy. Why should he think so ? First, because 
of the loss others would have to suffer. That is the 
fruit of the envious spirit, — delight, secret and self- 
contained at first, yet certain and positive delight at 
the discomfort, the losses, and sorrows of others. 
Truly a fiendish delight, and of short life. Second, 
if from others these items of joy-product could be 
possessed, they could be, would be, held in triumph 
to tantalize and annoy the victim. Happiness? 
Only in name, and in time to turn tormentor. 

It is true that this spirit of envy at first does not 
intend to take away aught of wealth or worth from 
its owner, — only a wish, a desire, either to have 
something equally good, or to share with the pos- 
sessor some of his abundant comfort; yet, in time, 
failure to receive begets a spirit of anarchy, a desire 
to see all unequalities destroyed, a leveling down of 
all conditions and classes of men to his own plane. 
Others may envy him ; but he would not care to ad- 
vocate an extreme that might reduce his meager 
possessions to the level of the Bushman or the Hot- 
tentot. 

"Thou shalt not covet" is a prohibition that 
hedges up and saves the soul from the danger of 
moral suicide. If another has wealth, and you have 
none, remember, to possess it without the trained 
habit of keeping the same from waste and dissipa- 



That Make for Happiness. 51 

tion would place you in a more miserable condition 
when it began to slip from you — as doubtless it would 
— and leave you with the memory of their luxury, 
with habits of ease and prodigality, without means 
of gratifying the same. Better a thousand times the 
joy that comes with the slow accumulation of a little 
than the false and fleeting pleasures because of the 
envy of the happiness and splendor of the life of 
another. Say, rather: "He has wealth, but I have 
no perplexity concerning thieves and false friends, 
intrigue of competitors, schemes of enemies and 
losses in a multitude of ways." "He may have fame 
and applause because of genius, but I may have the 
honor of his acquaintance, the pleasure of his friend- 
ship, and less of annoyance and daily demands that 
honor and fame may make." Diogenes was indeed 
a philosopher, though poor, who, when Alexander 
the Great bade him ask what he would and it would 
be granted, if in his power, said: "Stand from be- 
tween me and the sun !" Was he not wise who could 
enjoy the sunlight better than the shadow of a great 
man? 

2. Positively. 

Happiness comes to us along certain lines of life 
marked out by duty. They are the simple services 
well done in the little world where we dwell. Not 



52 Greatness of Little Things 

at some distant shrine, not in any movement of a 
magician's wand, are we to find and enjoy the secret 
of a happy life, but in the use of the common and 
despised things about and within us. 

(a) Contentment. 

A discontented spirit is always an unhappy one. 
To call up in order, and frequently, the names of 
the things we do not possess ; to rasp and ruffle our 
feelings and the feelings of others by the inconven- 
iences of our surroundings ; the limitations, diseases, 
aches, and pains of our bodily existence ; the things 
we might have had ; the losses and crosses we have 
endured, — such a peevish spirit who can bear and 
be happy ? 

Paul sent out to all the world a prescription for 
happiness, when he said : "For I have learned in 
whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." 
Such a decision is in harmony with the highest dili- 
gence and most constant industry ; but it guards 
against the bitterness of repining when success is 
not attained. 

He is to be commended who said : "I never com- 
plained but once in my life, and that was when I had 
no shoes, and it was bitter cold. As I wrapped my 
feet in rags, I bemoaned my miserable condition, 
when there hobbled by me on crutches a man who 



That Make for Happiness. 53 

had no feet ; I then saw how much better off I was 
than that poor cripple." 

"Count your blessings, name them one by one** 
Make the blue sky the dome of your own magnifi- 
cent palace ; the shining sun your own private elec- 
tric-light and heat plant; the whole wide world of 
teeming life, all a part of your vast possessions ! 
How rich you are! and, having food and raiment 
and shelter, therewith be content and you will be 
happy. 

(b) Purpose. 

Much of the discontent and consequent misery 
in life is caused by lack of a definite plan, the absence 
of a well-defined and fixed purpose. The listless, 
careless, slothful, can take no pride in any work ap- 
pointed. He who has no heart in his task will hasten 
to finish it, or leave it but partly done, and return to 
it only under protest. 

Work was never intended as a burden, much less 
a curse. Before sin came, the newly created was 
directed by the Creator to service in connection with 
the care and culture of the garden. No greater curse 
could come to man than that which would relieve 
him of all effort, and permit him to be merely the 
recipient of life's blessings, without a corresponding 
service and self-denial. 



54 Greatness of Little Things 

The convicts in the prisons of the State would 
consider their penalty unendurable if left without 
employment. Among the little things that make for 
contentment and happiness let this be noted, that 
time and talent must be busy with a task up to the 
full measure of opportunity and ability, or else life 
becomes a burden. 

A quaint writer says: "What is happiness? It 
ain't being idle; no idle man or woman ever was 
happy since the world began. Employment gives 
both appetite and digestion. Duty makes pleasure 
doubly sweet, by contrast. When pleasure is the 
business of life, it ceases to be pleasure." 

Respecting that purpose, the employment of time 
and strength, see to it that it combines three especial 
elements: First, let it be noble; for herein has it to 
do with the development of character. Second, that 
it be congenial. Suit the taste and the inclination 
in the choice of a task, and then it will not be aban- 
doned when reverses come, or become irksome amid 
the dull routine of dreary detail and necessary drudg- 
ery. Third, let it be useful. That entitles us to 
respect from our fellow-men, and their respect thrills 
the soul with satisfaction, and a determination to 
do well the task undertaken. 

"But," you say, "most of us will be called upon 
to lead very ordinary lives. The work we can do, 



That Make for Happiness. 55 

or the work we can get to do, may not be very con- 
genial, or very noble, estimated by the world. How 
can we be happy in any uncongenial and very ordi- 
nary service ?" 

Remember ! There is nobility in labor of what- 
ever task undertaken, be it the digging of a ditch, 
the sweeping of a floor, the sawing of wood, or the 
making of a garment ; every useful task is noble, and 
in that task one may have pleasure if he wills it. 

Joy in the doing of little deeds comes from the 
conscious satisfaction of a greater task soon to be 
completed. The weary steps are soon all forgotten 
in the accomplished fact of a journey ended. Word 
and then line, page and then chapter, and soon the 
book is read, the subject mastered. Nothing very in- 
spiring about a word or two, a few lines, or a num- 
ber of chapters merely; but thus the world's great 
literature may be brought up in splendid review. 
This hour, and then another, spent in some common- 
place, poorly paid service, viewed alone, may bring 
discontent and unhappiness, until the hours have 
measured off the day, the sum of the day's wages 
wisely invested, the days grow into weeks, the dimes 
count up to dollars, skill is acquired, stability culti- 
vated, and the life is nearing the end. Consciousness 
of service faithfully done, competence, if not afflu- 
ence, secured through the long years of multiplied 



56 Greatness of Little Things 

hours of lowly toil and then extended effort, changes 
discontent into supreme satisfaction, and crowns the 
life with blessings. 

(c) Friendships. 

Among the little things that make for happiness 
is the art of making friends and deserving them. 
What a dreary world ours would be without com- 
panions ! Half the joy we have in getting is due to 
the satisfaction of imparting to others — for a con- 
sideration, mostly. The "miser" is not only etymo- 
logically "miserable," but is so in fact, call him by 
any other name. The philanthropist not only loves 
mankind, but is loved in turn by his fellow-men. 
The misanthropist hates man, but is the hated of 
men also. If, then, happiness stands in the midst of 
friends, how wise is he who adds to that number, 
and by his conduct retains them because he is de- 
serving ! 

Friendship that is worth while is not secured by 
the abandonment of principle, or by an agreement to 
every word or deed that is noted in the life of those 
you admire. Favors and flatteries may not always 
establish ties of sympathy and love; they may be 
bribes or bonds of slavish servitude. The cultiva- 
tion of friendship is an art requiring studious skill. 
Some men and women will love and be friendly 



That Make for Happiness. 57 

when run after and besieged. Others will come to 
you, sing your praises when let alone, or only dealt 
with in a gentle, generous way, when met. Some 
people can be won by doing them favors; others, 
when induced to do you a favor. The race of man- 
kind, in general, is evenly tempered and easily won 
by kindness; nevertheless the vast variety of pe- 
culiar people in the world make exceptions to all 
rules. 

Some people will respect and admire you when 
you show respect and admiration for them. Some 
will be your best friends when, by a dignified and 
noble independence, you thereby demand of them 
rightful consideration. 

Concessions must always be made in matters 
non-essential in order to secure amity; but conces- 
sion ought not to be onesided. The best of blending 
is in mutual adjustment. A sincere, unselfish, stead- 
fast course in life, — administering praise wherever 
deserved, sympathy when needed, reproof seldom, 
then, in utmost kindness, lending a helping hand to 
the helpless, — is in general a fair rule for multiply- 
ing friends and strengthening the ties of friendship. 

In conclusion, not only be content with your pres- 
ent possessions, even while engaged in adding to 
them ; have a fixed and definite purpose in life and 
diligently adhere to it, even in the dreary details 



58 Greatness of Little Things 

of ever-recurring duty; make friends, multiply 
friendships and deserve them; but first of all and 
most of all, though coming last in the list, note that 
the one thing most essential to a happy life is : 

(d) Religion. 

It is by no means a little thing. It is all-embrac- 
ing and all-transcending. Dr. Johnson said: "The 
fountain of content must spring up in the mind; 
and he who has so little knowledge of human nature 
as to seek happiness by changing anything but his 
own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, 
and multiply the griefs which he purposes to re- 
move." 

Horace, the Latin poet, said : "You traverse the 
world in search of happiness, which is within the 
reach of every man; a contented mind confers it 
on all." 

A French writer has said : "This truth ought to 
be deeply printed in minds studious of wisdom and 
their own content, that they bear their happiness or 
unhappiness within their own breast; and that all 
outward things have a right and a wrong handle. 
Take a knife by the haft, it will serve you; take it 
by the edge, it will cut you. There is no good thing 
but is mingled with evil ; there is no evil but some 
good enters into the composition. The same truth 



That Make for Happiness. 59 

holds in all persons, actions, and events. Out of the 
worst, a well-composed mind, endowed with the 
grace of God, may extract good, with no other chem- 
istry than piety, wisdom, and serenity." 

Said Dr. Ryle : "So long as you do not quarrel 
with sin, you can never be a truly happy man. Thou- 
sands go on for a time in this way, and seem merry 
before the eyes of men, and yet in their heart carry 
about a lurking sorrow." 

If, then, you are to be happy now, with the 
uncertainty of the future left to adjust itself and 
the question of eternity answered with sanity and 
satisfaction, get right with God! Then, and not 
till then, will you be in harmony with all circum- 
stances and conditions, because there will be peace 
and right relations within — because God is there. 

The things that make for happiness are all within 
our reach; they come at our bidding. They are 
summed up in Christ's words: "Seek ye first the 
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these 
things shall be added unto you." 

"If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do 
them." 



IV. 
Little Things that Make for Wealth. 

"But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for 
it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth!' 

— Deut. viii, 18. 



IV. 
WEALTH. 

A false impression prevails as to the possession 
of wealth and its adjustment with a righteous char- 
acter. 

The common idea is, that goodness and poverty 
go hand in hand; that to possess wealth is to be 
possessed by the wicked one. 

Money is not the root of all evil. It is the love 
of money that excludes a higher and nobler affec- 
tion, and is the beginning, the source, the root of all 
evil. 

Abraham was the friend of God, yet he was rich, 
had been, and was, abundantly blest in that friend- 
ship. Job was rich, and his integrity was not im- 
paired by his prosperity. Even in his distress and 
affliction he maintained his righteousness, and in 
the end was blest even more abundantly in flocks 
and herds, lands and money. Joseph of Arimathaea, 
who, with Nicodemus, was a friend of Jesus, was 
rich in worldly goods, as also in spiritual experi- 
ences. 

63 



64 Greatness of Littuc Things 

God's plan in conferring upon us the dignity 
and self-respect of ownership — as a partner while 
yet a steward of His — is often thwarted by the 
abuse of that stewardship and the criminal disregard 
of the trust committed to us. The undue haste to 
get rich occurs only when the relationship between 
God the Giver and man the steward is forgotten or 
ignored. Such forgetfulness or rebellion results in 
degradation of soul to the sordidness of things of 
time and sense and the material world. 

God plans and places everything at the disposal 
of His children. He lays His kingdom at their 
feet, and bids them become His stewards. "For all 
are yours; . . . whether the world, or life, or 
things present, or things to come: all are yours." 
He made them for the good of His creatures and 
for His glory. He said: "Verily, there is no man 
that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or 
father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for 
My sake, and the gospel's, but he shall receive an 
hundred fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, 
and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, 
with persecutions ; and in the world to come eternal 
life." 

God's creation and preservation of all material 
things are for the use, the comfort, the necessity of 
His children, who are here in material form, with 



That Make: for Wealth. 65 

very material wants that must be supplied; hence 
He bids us possess, own, become masters of all 
things. When we cease to exist in bodily form, 
when we pass into spirit existence, with a spiritual 
body, no longer will we need these houses, and lands, 
and institutions, and implements of material con- 
quest — agencies of communication and tranporta- 
tion ; for we shall have passed the limitations of our 
lowly sphere and hampered condition, and become 
possessors of greater wealth, in a realm where we 
may in perfection hold all things in common. 

Bishop Joyce said to a body of laymen : "Make 
money; make all you can; make it honestly; use it 
wisely for God's glory and the good of men." It 
was a wise exhortation, and harmonizes with God's 
Word and the truth of the Gospel. 

Why gave He us power to get wealth, if the 
getting be wrong? Would He mock us with 
strength that was not to be used in material con- 
quest? Would He give us skill and genius to dis- 
cover and invent and become the masters of material 
forces, if such mastery be inconsistent with highest 
manhood and deepest reverence? Would oppor- 
tunities of making the wilderness bloom and blossom 
as the rose, the desert to become a garden, the mines 
of the mountains to pour their untold wealth at the 
feet of His children, if He did not design all these 
5 



66 Greatness of Little Things 

to be items of wealth for them, tokens of His love 
and helpfulness? 

"For it is He that giveth thee power to get 
wealth." But having gotten it, having taken advan- 
tage of God-given opportunities, exercised God- 
given strength, God-allotted time, and God-endowed 
skill and discernment, woe to that soul that saith : 
"I have much goods laid up for many years ; behold, 
all the good things / have made, / have produced, 
/ have worked for, and / have earned. Soul, take 
thine ease!" Hear God's comment on such self- 
conceit, such folly : "Thou fool ! this night thy soul 
shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those 
things be which thou hast provided?" Was he the 
same man — or only a brother — who fared sumptu- 
ously every day, clothed in purple and fine linen, 
who permitted a beggar to be left at his gate day 
after day, and still be a beggar? "And in hell he 
lifted up his eyes, being in torment," and heard that 
most tantalizing reminder of misused wealth : "Son, 
remember that thou, in thy lifetime, received thy 
good things," sufficient, but still such limited satis- 
faction, in exchange for infinite wealth in the bosom, 
in the home and heart of father Abraham — "the 
figure of the Father Almighty." 

God gives thee power to get wealth, not alone 
for self, or for the sake of getting, but for His glory, 



That Make; for Wealth. 67 

for your comfort, and the comfort of your fellow- 
man. In the getting, remember your relationship to 
your Heavenly Father and to your Heavenly 
Father's other children about you. 

But is it possible for us all to get wealth, be- 
come possessors of sufficient of material resources 
as to be independent ? Yes, and No. 

If we were now, and had been from the begin- 
ning, and were to continue to be, faithful to God, 
the diligence of each family would accumulate suffi- 
cient for daily, yearly wants and to spare. But sin 
came, and at its coming came weakness, physical, 
mental, moral ; came selfishness, ambition, oppres- 
sion of the weak by the strong ; all humanity out of 
harmony with righteousness ; robbery, conquest, war, 
vices that waste and eat up in a year the earnings 
of a lifetime. If, then, that desirable state ever again 
be reached, even in a measure, in a measure will it 
be possible to see every family in possession of rea- 
sonable comfort secured by the accumulation of 
wealth. 

But we shall always be dependent upon each 
other. It is not possible, even with fabulous wealth 
and vast resources, to be even comfortably independ- 
ent of our fellows. Drive out quickly every living 
thing, man, woman, and child, from some great city ; 
let it become the home and habitation of the strong- 



68 Greatness of Little Things 

est, wisest man on earth, — how helpless and hope- 
less and unhappy such a soul would be, alone and 
unattended amid the wealth and splendor of an aban- 
doned city ! Warehouses filled with the products 
of field and forest and factory ; banks with the coin 
of all nations ; machinery, motionless, in all the mam- 
moth buildings waiting his touch to produce the 
cunning products of skill and usefulness; libraries, 
music halls, echoing gloomily the tread of this one 
lonely owner ! Plenty to eat, plenty to wear through- 
out a lifetime of ten thousand such as he ; fuel, food, 
furniture ; all the comforts, nay, luxuries abundant, 
but abandoned. Plenty, yet want in the midst of 
a wilderness of wealth. Though the monarch and 
master of it all should live to enjoy it all a thousand 
years, not one of those long years would pass with- 
out a longing for companionship ; for the very things 
men seek to avoid, — dependence, and service for 
others. For with this interlocking of interest comes 
social life and its blessed, reciprocal relations. 

Co-operation is the law of the largest liberty in 
human life. The law of the Lord is, "Subdue and 
have dominion." This wide world must be made 
habitable. Its wildness must be conquered, or else 
man himself will be overcome by the encroachment 
of nature, animal and vegetable, about him. He, 
then, is a benefactor of the race who, by skill and 



That Make for Wealth. 69 

diligence, makes two blades of grass or grain grow 
where one grew before ; who brings one more square 
foot or one acre more of wildness into a state of 
culture ; who digs a well, builds a fence, a machine, 
a city, a nation, though he may not live forever to 
enjoy all the fruits of his labor. Each individual 
effort at wealth accumulation is a contribution to 
the sum-total of the world's wealth. Each wasteful 
life, each day lost, is so much of a burden on the 
energies of others. 

"You have lost an hour," said the manager to 
a tardy engineer for whom he was waiting. 

"O no, sir. I 'm only five minutes late." 

"Yes, but there are twelve of us. By your delay, 
each of us had to wait five minutes. That loss is 
all yours." 

If the present civilization, the present wealth of 
the world, could be summed up, and over against it 
could be placed the hours of idleness, destructive 
wickedness, the avoidable losses, the unnecessary 
wars, the willful obstructions, it might easily be seen 
that twice as much has been earned as has been 
saved. If added to this we place floods, fires, storms, 
decay, delays by death, misdirected energies, we 
shall have a view of the struggle for existence that 
puts the price of present civilization at an enormous 
figure. 



70 Greatness of Little Things 

Indeed, social civilization has had a heavy burden 
to bear. Some men never cost the State a cent to 
govern. They have learned and practice self-gov- 
ernment. But how expensive to the State are a few 
men among every thousand law-abiding citizens ! 
A bad boy in a school may retard the work of a score 
of diligent students, and cause more anxiety, take 
more of the teacher's time, than is exercised for the 
good of a number of his fellows. Police force, jails, 
court officials, militia, penitentiaries, are expensive 
necessities, — and most of the cost must be borne by 
the inoffensive and innocent. Add to all this the 
wastes and burdens of the liquor and opium habit, 
protected because permitted by law, and we are not 
surprised at the staggering steps of sober citizen- 
ship in the efforts toward progress, because of the 
heavy load carried. Parasites are in every commu- 
nity, able-bodied men and women, who live off of 
other people. Therefore he is doing a valuable serv- 
ice who instructs youth, trains to usefulness the 
rising generation. The "trust in God" that is the 
exhortation and entreaty of His Book, and of the 
Church and good men in all ages of the world, is 
not inconsistent with the most diligent and pains- 
taking effort at the increase of material wealth for 
human comfort. 



That Make; for Weai/th. 71 

Consider, then, some of the little things that 
make for wealth. 

1. Industry. 

Lord Clarendon said : "There is no art or science 
that is too difficult for industry to attain to. It is the 
gift of tongues, and makes a man understood and 
valued in all countries and by all nations. It is the 
Philosopher's Stone that turns all metal and even 
stones into gold, and suffers no want to break into 
its dwellings. It is the Northwest Passage that 
brings the merchant's ships as soon to him as he can 
desire. In a word, it conquers all enemies and makes 
fortune itself pay contribution." 

The world owes no man a living. The Creator 
has made it possible for every man, not only to earn 
a living, but make a contribution to the vast store 
of wealth needed by an expanding and oncoming 
civilization. 

Dr. Ray has said: "I persuade myself that the 
Author of man's being is well pleased with the in- 
dustry of man in adorning the earth with beautiful 
cities, with pleasant villages and country houses, 
with gardens and orchards and plantations, with pas- 
tures clothed with flocks and meadows richly car- 
peted, and whatever else that makes a difference be- 



72 Greatness of Little Things 

tween a civil and well-cultivated region and a barren 
and desolate wilderness." 

What but labor, hard, persistent application to 
the task, could bring about a change so well de- 
scribed? Every stroke of the ax, every spade dili- 
gently used, all efforts vigorously prosecuted, have 
their reward. Not by a scheme, not by the visionary 
coming of Dame Fortune to your door, not by the 
death of some wealthy relative, or the lucky dis- 
covery of some gold-field, or the successful patent- 
ing and sale of some invention, does wealth bring 
its sweetest or largest gifts ; but by the hand of the 
diligent, the well-directed, unremitting toil of the 
individual workman, "whose setting sun sees some 
task completed, whose early rising saw it first 
begun." 

Preparation for service is the first advice needed 
by all who would serve well. The tool should have 
a keen edge, or else much of the strength is wasted 
in wielding a dull instrument. Discipline the hand, 
by the most careful culture of the mind. Be not 
in haste to sell your time and strength and skill at 
a meager price, when a keener edge may command 
a higher premium by preparation. Make yourself 
indispensable to him who gives employment. Please 
him, and you will be best pleased in turn. Always 
be employed, if for no other reason than the culti- 



That Make for Wealth. 73 

vation of an industrious habit. Be your own em- 
ployer as soon as possible. There will always be 
competition in all lines of unskilled labor. Begin 
to give employment to others, and the industrious 
habit and the experience as a wage-earner will serve 
you well. If no work is at hand, study. Seek in- 
struction. Read books, papers, magazine articles, 
especially those that concern your calling. The ex- 
ample of very many about you may be of the indif- 
ferent sort. Its effect might be enervating, mis- 
leading, destructive. Do not trifle. When at play, 
play. In hours of relaxation give yourself over to 
sports and pastimes for a purpose. When study or 
work is resumed, make the most of it. By a reso- 
lution of the will seek for excellence along all lines 
of honest toil. Money makes money. The first one 
hundred dollars earned and saved, and rightly in- 
vested, may tell of hardships, sacrifices, and anxiety, 
beyond that experienced in the accumulation of the 
next nine hundred. But still the story of the con- 
quest of the first thousand dollars will read like a 
romance, compared with the dull prose that describes 
the coming of nine companions of like number. All 
this has its beginning in determination, its progress 
in self-denial, its success in studious habits, its end 
in victory and satisfaction. 

But what avails industry if its fruits are all 



74 Greatness of Little Things 

wasted ? The next little-great thing that makes for 
wealth is : 

2. Economy. 

If, at the end of the year, there has been no sav- 
ing, there has been an absolute loss ; for time has 
gone, and strength is going, and something must be 
saved to show for the year besides a mere living. 

Dr. Johnson has said: "Without economy, none 
can be rich; and with it, few can be poor." Hali- 
burton said : "No man is rich whose expenditure 
exceeds his means ; and no one is poor whose income 
exceeds his outgoings." "Frugality," said another, 
"may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister 
of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty. He that 
is extravagant will quickly become poor, and pov- 
erty will enforce dependence and invite corruption." 

What is happiness ? Living within one's income. 
What is misery? Spending more than is earned. 
See what splendid results flow from annual savings 
with interest : Suppose $50 per year is saved, and put 
out at 6 per cent interest, and compounded. In ten 
years it has amounted to $650. In twenty years, 
$1,860; in thirty years, $3,950; in forty years, 
$7,700, and in fifty years it has grown to $14,500. 
Think of it ! A snug sum for an old man to retire 
on at the age of seventy. The wastefulness of the 



That Make for Wealth. 75 

average man or woman would, if corrected, put him 
or her in a fair way of practical independence. 

3. Investment. 

Money earned and judiciously invested becomes 
a helper at further earnings. As to the manner and 
place of such investment, only general suggestions 
can be made. Let safety be the first consideration. 
The promise of quick returns and unusually large 
profits is always accompanied with an element of 
risk that is not wise to take. Consider your earnings 
well invested when spent for mental and manual in- 
struction. What you store up of knowledge will be 
your permanent possession. The best capital any 
man or woman can have is a well-trained mind. The 
best education, one can possibly secure with the time 
and means and opportunity at hand, is great wealth. 
This truth will be felt more keenly in the coming 
years than ever before in all the past. Competition 
will make it an absolute necessity. The coming to 
America of such vast armies of unskilled laborers 
will either drive out the unprepared native, or push 
him to climb for a superior position. 

Place your earnings, next, most largely in the 
business or calling in which you are engaged. Im- 
prove the facilities and conveniences and agencies 



76 Greatness of Little Things 

of your own profession or enterprise, and thus keep 
your investments largely under your own control. 
One may wisely enter into co-operation with others, 
using discretion, considering in order the questions 
of safety, congeniality, and profit. There are many 
such opportunities. You may have skill and experi- 
ence ; your friend may have means and facilities, but 
failing health. He leases you his farm, his factory, 
or shop, or asks that you share with him his office 
and a percentage of the receipts in return for serv- 
ices. Be as diligent with other people's interests as 
you would they should be with yours. Take stock 
in building and loan associations, under local man- 
agement; make deposits of stated sums weekly or 
monthly in savings banks, until sufficient has ac- 
cumulated to be used in more remunerative invest- 
ment. Be willing to consult with business men of 
discreet and conservative reputation respecting the 
character of any and all inducements offered con- 
cerning investments. They have not lived in vain. 
They have seen sanguine expectations doomed to 
disappointment. They may be "slow" and "Old 
Fogy," but they doubtless have paid well for what 
they know. They have had experience that is always 
wise to respect. 

As a protection, if not an investment, take out 
a life insurance policy for an amount you can 



That Make: for Weai/th. 77 

readily pay for, in some one of the many safe, sound, 
and conservative companies, upon the endowment 
plan. The new era into which we have entered has 
seen the disappearance of the traditional "stocking" 
and its accumulated coins of strict economy of other 
days. The prejudice and superstition that once ex- 
isted against life insurance has also gone, to a great 
extent, with the going of the "stocking," and a more 
profitable form of safety has taken its place. 

It was once argued that to insure one's life was a 
distrust of God — a form of wager with a corporation 
that you would live out the allotted period written 
in your insurance paper, or that you must die in 
order to win. The guarantee that, by the payment 
of a certain sum per annum for a certain term of 
years, you should have a certain sum of money re- 
turned to you in case you were alive, or if you did 
not live, your heirs or dependents should have it at 
your death, was but a straight, strict business trans- 
action, based upon definite calculations and long 
years of observation, — removed the element of 
chance from the proposition. The secretion of coin 
in various unheard-of places in that other day, was 
just as much a bet that the thief would n't find the 
hiding-place, as well as a very great distrust of 
Providence, as the life insurance transaction of to- 
day. You can not afford to take the risk on one life 



78 Greatness of Little Things 

as well as you can on two. The chances decrease 
as the number of risks increase, scattered as they are 
throughout many States, and varied as they will be 
by age and employment and risk. Insure for $1,000, 
twenty-year endowment. When earnings increase, 
add to your insurance another thousand-dollar pol- 
icy, and carry only as much as you are able to do 
without serious embarrassment. Insure your life 
before disease makes it impossible to secure a policy ; 
do so before old age makes the cost an item of careful 
consideration. 

Lastly : To the little things that make for wealth 
must not be omitted 

4. Liberality. 

I do not mean the wealth of soul that comes from 
sympathizing in a substantial way with the dis- 
tressed, but, as a means to wealth, systematic, pro- 
portionate giving, beginning with the tithe of one's 
income, and increasing as God prospers, is as essen- 
tial to the accumulation of wealth as industry or 
economy. It is a form of judicious investment. 

"He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto 
the Lord, and that which he hath given He will pay 
him again." (Prov. xix, 17.) Isn't that good se- 
curity? Will He pay less interest than an ordinary 
savings bank ? 



That Make; for Wsai/th. 79 

"There is that scattereth and yet increaseth ; and 
there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it 
tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made 
fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also him- 
self." (Prov. xi, 24-25.) 

"Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, 
he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard." 
(Prov. xxi, 13.) 

That a portion of our earnings belongs to God, 
and the withholding of it from Him is robbery, is 
a truth of divine origin. So also the truth concern- 
ing the Sabbath. Are not its benefits equally ex- 
tended to rich and poor, to good and bad alike? 
The law of the tithe is also of universal application. 
There is no record of a case where this law has been 
observed as it should be, as an act of worship, that it 
has not proven financially beneficial. We save only 
when we are honest with God. "Give, and it shall be 
given unto you." Enter into partnership with the 
Almighty. Say at the beginning of your life's pil- 
grimage: "If God will be with me and keep me in 
this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and 
raiment to put on, then shall the Lord be my God, 
and of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give 
the tenth unto Thee." That 's a common-sense con- 
tract ! 

He that giveth thee power to get wealth will not 



80 Greatness of Little Things 

withdraw Himself from thee, but will be thy stay, 
and thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward ! 

Be industrious; 

Be economical; 

Be judicious; 

Be liberal and just, and thy God will never 
leave nor forsake thee! 



V. 
Little Things that Make for Health. 

'Beloved, I pray that in all things thou mayest pros- 
per and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth" 

— 3 John 2. 



V. 
HEALTH. 

Bodily health is a great blessing. To be free 
from pain, to have the right use of all the organs of 
our physical constitution, places us in a position to 
enjoy life, and make life enjoyable to others. 

"A sound mind in a sound body" has been for 
ages the highest conception of earthly bliss, viewed 
from the standpoint of the philosopher and the stu- 
dent of the human form divine. That there have 
been brilliant minds developed in bodies of frailty, 
as there have been souls cultured by suffering, does 
not disprove the general law that the normal con- 
dition of physical soundness is necessary to the best 
service and most perfect development of mental and 
spiritual life. 

Steadiness of nerve, clearness of brain, strength 
and endurance of all the bodily powers, are essential 
to best results in the realm of the intellect. So also 
in the realm of the spiritual, the highest attainments 
are to be gained, with physical and mental sound- 
ness, are hindered by disease and impaired health. 

That this body of ours, wonderfully wrought and 
fearfully made, is to receive our care and our atten- 

83 



84 Greatness of Little Things 

tion continually, is solemnly and strongly set forth 
by the apostle Paul, who said: "Know ye not that 
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which 
is in you ? If any man defile the temple of God, him 
shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, 
which temple ye are." 

The prayer of the beloved disciple John for his 
friend Gaius, that he might prosper and be in health, 
was a wise and tender petition. The mind needs 
a healthy body in order to do its best work ; the soul 
develops wisely and well when dwelling in a house 
where every part harmonizes with the highest laws 
of physical being. 

But, alas ! how many and how fierce are the ene- 
mies that attack and wound and weaken this body of 
ours ! Who of us is free from pain, from weariness 
at slight exertion, and who is not in search of a 
remedy for the ills the flesh is heir to? Who has 
perfect health ; has never been sick a day in a score 
or more of years ; is vigorous and strong, ready for 
any task, any kind of exposure, or any service along 
the lines of ordinary service ? 

The fevers of the South, the "white terror" of 
the North, the plague-spots and contagions of the 
crowded East, the hurry and haste and worry of the 
West, are like invading armies, bent on the utter 
destruction of the frail citadel of man. 



That Make for Health. 85 

The skill of the physician, the marked progress 
in surgical knowledge, the tact of the trained nurse, 
the multiplied appliances of hospital service, the pa- 
tience and genius that has wrought in laboratory and 
brought to pharmacy the wealth of helpful reme- 
dies, — all have done much to make life worth living. 
Yet again I ask, Who has reached manhood or 
womanhood without the lingering reminder of dis- 
eased heredity, of indiscretion, of violated law, 
known or unknown ; of this attack successfully 
warded off, where yet the scars are seen ? 

Boast as we may of athletes, acrobats, and cham- 
pions of the "track" and in the arena of physical 
contest, nevertheless we are but a race of emaciated, 
unsound, sickly people. This is still more remark- 
able when we consider the multitude of remedies that 
a kind and thoughtful class has provided for us; 
"no cure, no pay." Look at the shelves of any drug- 
gist; note the large assortment of liquids and min- 
erals and what not, all of them warranted "sure 
cure," and all of them under a patent. Cures there 
are, many and interesting. Water cure, rest cure, 
mind cure, mirth cure, faith cure, — you take your 
choice. They are harmless, even if they do not cure 
you of your "faith" or "mirth" or "rest." Then, 
there are the baths. Note their number and variety : 
Sea baths, mineral-water baths (external and in- 



86 Greatness of Little Things 

tcrnal), electric baths (shocking!), vapor baths, 
Turkish and sun baths ; and in Indiana there are mud 
baths. A gentleman inquired of another if he had 
ever taken one of those wonderful "mud baths." 
He said : "Yes, once when I ran for office." It must 
have been a mud-slinging campaign. It is to t>e 
hoped that he was cured. Then, there is the Health- 
food agent, the advocate of vegetarian diet, the plan 
and practice of "no breakfast" or one-meal-a-day 
heresy. 

Every once in a while some new "fad" springs 
up among the people, has a great rage, flourishes 
for a season, then subsides and is unheard of again, 
being superseded by something else equally sensa- 
tional and equally absurd. Some years ago there 
was a "blue glass" craze. The theory was that in- 
stead of the pure white or golden light of the sun 
beaming into the sick-room through the transparent 
window-pane or open window, there should be a 
division of these rays, and by the use of blue glass 
only the blue light should thus be admitted. So 
sudden and great was the demand for blue glass, 
that the markets of St. Louis, Chicago, and all the 
Eastern cities were overwhelmed with orders for the 
article, in order to try the new remedy. That craze 
died away almost as quickly as it was born. 

Recently a fad took a start, that the early morn- 



That Make: for Health. 87 

ing dew had in it medicinal qualities, and to walk 
barefooted on the grass before the sun drove the 
sparkling diamonds from the green, was a sure cure 
for a multitude of ills. It had its day (and doubtless 
had some cleansing effects beside the value of early 
morning rising and exercise) ; but it went the way 
of all other fads. 

The proof of a diseased and credulous humanity 
is certainly very evident, not alone in the substantial 
support given to a variety of schools of medical prac- 
tice^ — allopathy, homeopathy, hydropathy, oste- 
opathy, and a combination of some of each for a 
very accommodating and general practice called the 
Eclectic — but also in the rise and wonderful flourish 
of a host of "isms" that allure with great promise, 
and, by cures produced by other causes, deceive the 
helpless victims and their faithful friends for the 
sake of the dollar. Was not "Weltmerism" a grow- 
ing panacea for suffering humanity's ills, until denied 
the use of the mail for their long-distant and far- 
absent treatment, but always pay-in-advance system ? 

Does not magnetism furnish a field for the dis- 
play of individual skill upon individual subjects, 
more or less successful ? Do you know of the sacred 
relic at St. Anne, Illinois, where dupes of the nerv- 
ous-spinal-rheumatic-trouble come, see, touch, leave 
their crutches, go their way, and say : "Great is the 



88 Greatness of Little Things 

miracle of St. Anne!" Has Schlatter, the modern 
Messiah, been forgotten ? Does Dowieism flourish ? 
Is there much of science or of Christianity in Chris- 
tian Science, numbering its followers and its testi- 
monials by the thousands ? What about Keeley and 
an open saloon? 

Are we indeed growing wiser as weakness grows 
upon us? Perhaps the world is in possession of 
much valuable knowledge concerning the cause and 
cure of disease. The failure to disseminate that 
knowledge, the inability of the masses to appreciate 
and understand it — above all, to make use of it in a 
general way — may account for much of the distress 
and consequent weakness in the world. 

The violent outbreak of fanaticism, now and 
then, running mad after some supposed supernatural 
or mysterious deliverance from bodily suffering, 
would seem to question the oft-quoted statement as 
to the growth of wisdom in a race evidently growing 
weaker. Were it not for the more conservative, the 
evenly balanced remnant of the race, who set out to 
correct the error after which the multitude has gone, 
before these wise men are even aware of its pres- 
ence, we might despair of the permanency of prog- 
ress among us. 

The more there is of an appearance of Divine 
intervention, the more stubborn the opposition. So 



That Make for Health. 89 

healing by prayer becomes a belief and a practice. 
Its limitations have never been established. What 
can be cured, and what is not proper subject of 
prayer, has not been definitely stated ; but that, after 
all, death is final victor has never been questioned. 
To prolong life and relieve pain is the most that can 
be claimed. 

Let it be understood that here, in the affairs of 
the flesh and body as in other affairs of human life, 
there is a ruling Providence ; there is law and order 
and system and consistency in every department of 
the infinite realm of the spiritual. The spiritual and 
mental are superior to the physical and the material. 
That the soul should find relief and resignation in 
the compassionate and all-wise and infinite One is 
not surprising. But to believe, to pray, and then 
ignore the plain and explicit directions of the laws of 
our common being, is to presume upon Mercy, and 
expect good to come, when the conditions of a right 
life have not been met. Will faith heal us if we 
refuse food and drink? Will prayer save us if we 
avail not ourselves of the simple and necessary 
remedies that cleanliness, warmth, rest in sleep af- 
ford ? What, then, about surgery, and the remedies 
suggested by the experienced and skillful physician ? 

Two thousand years ago Ecclesiasticus spoke a 
true word, that finds confirmation in both God's 



90 Greatness of Little Things 

Word written and God's Word spread out before us 
in nature and events. Hear it : 

"The Lord hath created medicines out of the 
earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them. 
My son, in thy sickness be not negligent; but pray 
unto the Lord, and He will make thee whole. Leave 
off thy sin, and order thy hands aright, and cleanse 
thy heart from all wickedness. Then give place to 
the physician, for the Lord hath created him ; let 
him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. 
There is a time when, in their hands, there is good 
success. For they shall also pray unto the Lord that 
He would prosper that which they give for ease and 
to prolong life?" Is there anything wrong about 
that? 

We are too much inclined to ignore God in the 
ordinary affairs of life, and some of us seem to think 
we have nothing to do in the matter of our own sal- 
vation or the restoration of health, when once it has 
been impaired by our own indiscretion, but to turn 
it over to the Lord. That is faith "without works." 

It is true, confirmed by every honest druggist 
and every conscientious physician in the land, that 
there is a tendency to resort to medicines, to appeal 
to physicians, more frequently than is necessary. 
The testimony of doctors in the matter would come 
a little nearer being unanimous if the custom pre- 



That Make for Health. 91 

vailed of paying an annual fee for advice and needed 
service, than payment on account of special visits. 
More frequently we should hear it said: "You are 
not seriously ill ; you will be yourself again in a few 
days. Do n't get uneasy.' , 

Patients themselves make it necessary for the 
physician to look solemn, shake his head, compound 
some bitter but harmless dose, in order that nature 
may have a chance to help the frightened, grown-up 
child of a fancied ailment. 

That is supposed to be the most desirable state 
of bliss where one is as ignorant of the existence of 
vital organs and their functions, and of the uses of 
foods, as it is possible to be. The more one knows, 
of the little learning sort, the more certain he is that 
he has received a death-dealing blow when a slight 
pain strikes him in the region of the heart or the 
lungs, or a little lower down. Some people can not 
regale themselves with the freshness and wisdom of 
the annual almanac, issued by some proprietary med- 
ical company, but are sure to feel a sympathetic 
anxiety, somewhere in their bodily make-up, calling 
for that very remedy, which has effected such mar- 
velous cures in the case of others. 

The spread of contagious diseases is due, more 
frequently than is supposed, to a "scared-to-death" 
class, who cry aloud before they are hurt. The 



92 Greatness of Little Things 

more they run, the faster the disease runs to catch 
them. 

The facts are, the better informed concerning 
this body of ours and the things that help or injure 
it, the better off we are. The introduction of the 
study of physiology and hygiene in our public 
schools, within the lifetime of those now teaching, 
and the later requirement of scientific study of the 
effects of stimulants and narcotics upon the human 
system, has had, and will continue to have, a bene- 
ficial influence upon public health. All laws looking 
to the abatement of nuisances, plague-spots ; all quar- 
antine regulations; all prohibitory enactments re- 
specting expectorating on sidewalks, in passenger 
coaches and street cars ; all addresses at institutes, 
sermons, and lectures devoted to the principles of 
health, help to prolong life and make it worth living. 
We need physicians; we need instruction; we need 
rules, regulations, requirements for the public health. 
But with all these guides and guards, this body will, 
in spite of care and patching and tinkering, dissolve, 
and out from the material will pass that which ani- 
mated it, which gave it personality and power, into 
another and spiritual body, eternal in the heavens. 
It is for the soul within that the house without 
should have our constant care and our unremitting 
attention. What, then, are the little things that 
make for health? 



That Mark For Health. 93 



1. Diet. 



This has to do, not only with the food we eat, 
the liquids we drink, but also as to their quantity and 
quality, the time and the condition of eating and 
drinking. The application of just ordinary common 
sense would save many hours of pain, prevent seri- 
ous sickness, if not loss of life. 

From infancy we have been prone to put almost 
everything into the mouth, whether it was digestible 
or not. In growing youth the "taste of things" gov- 
erned. We ate or rejected whatever the capricious 
palate said was good or bad. In manhood and 
womanhood, with little knowledge and no judgment 
as to food values, we came into possession of a com- 
plete set of rebellious organs, and soon became the 
victims of dyspepsia and a host of other disagree- 
able aches and pains, the heritage of overeating, 
underfeeding, or feasting on "good things" that 
were very bad for us. The habit of rapid eating, 
of taking excessively hot food and drink, followed 
by food frozen so as to "taste good," has done for 
the man animal what is seldom known of among 
other animals — created disturbances not easily al- 
layed. 

That we have been also the victims of much that 
is impure in the food articles of commerce is very 



94 Greatness of Little Things 

generally known. The canned goods, the baking 
powders, the various condiments supplied us from 
the mammoth establishments of our day, may have 
in them elements of danger unknown, unthought of 
by our fathers and mothers of a generation or two 
back. 

The bread, the pie, the cake that our mother used 
to make may have been more substantial, even if 
less palatable, than that of present-day science. We 
are not anxious to return to the "good old days" 
of early cookery ; we hope yet to see better foods pre- 
pared, and to enjoy them, than any boasted of in the 
past. 

More and more are we beginning to appreciate 
the necessity of good cooking ; not the elaborate and 
peculiarly concocted dishes of special occasions, but 
instruction concerning the preparation of seasonable 
food for the system. Cooking schools, like other 
professional schools, or hours of special training in 
cooking in the public school, as in matters of manual 
training, will be honored and appreciated when it is 
found out how essential such things are to health 
and morals. Consider well when thou art at the 
table, eat to live; eat slowly; be temperate in all 
things. Let Dr. Diet be thy attendant physician. 
Heed his instruction ; follow closely his prescription. 



That Make: for Heal/th. 95 

2. Sleep. 

Beecher said : "Waking consumes, sleep replaces ; 
waking exhausts, sleeping repairs ; waking is death, 
sleep is life. The man who sleeps little repairs little ; 
if he sleeps poorly, he repairs poorly. If he uses up 
all the day less than he accumulates at night, he will 
gain in life and vigor ; if he uses up all that he gains 
at night, he will just hold his own ; if he uses more 
by day than he gathers at night, he will lose; and 
if this last process be long continued, he must suc- 
cumb. A man who would be a good worker must 
see to it that he is a good sleeper." 

John Wesley exhibited a page in his note-book, 
on which was written, after a number of dates, the 
significant entry: "Lost thirty minutes ;" "Lost an 
hour;" "Lost an hour and a half," — until the total 
counted up an equivalent of two weeks. "This," 
said he, "must all be made up. It represents so much 
time taken from the allotted seven hours of sleep 
out of every twenty-four. I do not intend to regain 
it all at once, — but shall retire so much earlier each 
night than I have been accustomed to, and make up 
all this loss." 

The great haste and hurry of our modern life, 
the prolonging of day and its duties long into the 
night, has been disastrous to the health and vigor of 



96 Greatness oe Little Things 

the average American. The high tension, the ex- 
actions of school and trade and travel, necessitate 
more of counteraction in sleep than ever before. 
Excitement of city life, demands in social circles, 
concentration of thought upon a multitude of inter- 
ests, attention drawn from the peaceful village and 
farm life to the stirring scenes in Asia, in Africa, 
in Alaska, will, unless in some way relief is found, 
make us a nation of nervous, hysterical, if not in- 
sane people. 

" ■ God bless the man who first invented sleep P 
So Sancho Panza said, and so say I." 

The commercialism of our age, its excitement and 
stir and strife, is bringing men prematurely to old 
age and the grave. Need is more evident of seasons 
of relaxation and vacation days; by the merchant, 
society people, the banker, the lawyer, the preacher, 
the housewife, the teacher, everybody urged on by 
this task and that, until, either broken in health or 
doing poorly in the business, a change is demanded. 
Now, a very simple remedy is found, not in costly 
pilgrimages to seashores, or total abandonment of all 
home and business interests for six weeks' or two 
months' vacation, but in rest, quietness, sleep, as the 
days and nights come and go. 

Children should have it regularly, and undis- 



That Make for Health. 97 

turbed. Growing boys and girls should not be al- 
lowed to dissipate the hours assigned by nature to 
the recuperation of the system, but should be trained 
to regularity of hours of retiring and rising; for 
many of the disasters to bodily health come along 
the line of disobedience to the demand for sleep. 
Next after Dr. Diet, consult Dr. Quiet for valuable 
hints on health. 

3. Sunshine. 

To eat well, to sleep well, one must feel the effect 
of fresh air, exercise, and the invigorating influence 
of sunlight. Let the house welcome this blessed 
health-bringer, through window and open door. Let 
each one catch a glimpse of the sun's first dawning, 
stay with him while he lifts the load from depressed 
spirits during the day, and sends him to the room 
and to the bed that the blessed beams have visited 
during the waking hours. Then will sleep be re- 
freshing. Sunshine is the microbe killer, the best 
disinfectant agency, the tonic and soporific medicine 
for all God's children in poverty and distress. It 
purifies the air, warms it for the lungs, invigorates 
the body, kindles a light in the eye, and enriches the 
life of all who court its glory. Make sunshine a 
regular and constant physician. 
7 



98 Greatness of Little Things 

4. Shelter. 

Protection from the severity of winter, from op- 
pression of the heat of summer, is necessitated by 
this very susceptible body of ours. From the storm, 
from the rain, from the heat and the cold, we need 
houses in which to live. But remember, the house 
in which we live is not as important as the man or 
woman who dwells there, just as this bodily house is 
not as important as the soul that lives within. Shel- 
ter, then, should be the means to an end, and not the 
end itself. Fine houses, like fine clothes, may serve 
the purpose of shelter, but there may be much dis- 
comfort and little protection in the finery of both 
house and clothes. "I feel so chilly/' said a fash- 
ionably dressed lady in a stagecoach, as she shiver- 
ingly drew her thin lace shawl about her shoulders ; 
"what shall I do?" "Thee better put on another 
breast-pin," solemnly replied an old Quaker gentle- 
man present. 

Do n't sacrifice comfort, endanger health by any 
foolish behest or unreasonable demand of fashion 
or rule of propriety. Do n't let false modesty pre- 
vent the observance of rules of health, or allow ridi- 
cule to cheat you out of comfort, health, education, 
or heaven. Protect your body; surround yourself 
with safeguards. Endurance and exposure have 



That Make for Heai/th. 99 

limits, refuse to go beyond reasonable bounds. 
Shelter the feet. Great battles have been lost be- 
cause the feet of the common soldiery were not prop- 
erly shod. More diseases have had their beginning 
in ill attention to the comfort and protection of the 
feet than are commonly supposed. A great company, 
engaged in the manufacture and sale of shoes, has 
adopted a wise trademark advertisement, which con- 
tains four words — hear them in behalf of your lower 
extremities — namely: "Make Your Feet Glad." 
A cost of a pair of rubbers may be saved by a woman 
wearing thin shoes, and a life lost. Look to the 
comfort of the feet, even if you have to deny your- 
self of a piece of stunning neckwear or a new-style 
hat. 

Shelter the throat and lungs. Breathe through 
the nose. Warm up the wintry air by having it pass 
through the longer channel than that which admits 
its chill to the lungs from the mouth. Put more cov- 
ering upon the chest, even if society says otherwise. 
Keep watch of these organs ; breathe deep, and expel 
the poison by the introduction of fresh air. Keep 
the body clean ; keep it from danger as well as from 
disease. Be in health, and prosper with the prosper- 
ity of the soul. Seek the advice of those who are 
qualified to speak, and beware of kindly-intentioned, 
well-meaning friends, who may send you to moun- 

LofC. 



ioo Greatness of Little Things 

tain heights when seashore influences may be best. 
Be sure that Drs. Diet, Quiet, and Sunshine are 
given a respectful hearing. Consult them daily. Let 
the kindly comfort of that trained and experienced 
nurse, "Shelter," be always welcome. Commune 
with the laws of physical being and God, your Cre- 
ator, and you will have clone much to make a sound 
body for a sound mind and an eternal spirit. But 
some day this tenement of clay will be no longer 
serviceable. It will dissolve, give place to another, 
which is being prepared for us. "For we know that 
if this earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, 
we have a building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens." 



VI. 

Little Things That Make for Education. 

"The word of the Lord was unto them precept upon 
precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, 
line upon line; here a little and there a little" 

— Isa. xxviii, 13. 



VI. 
EDUCATION. 

The processes of education, both religious and 
secular, are practically the same. In each we ad- 
vance step by step, pass through a series of grada- 
tions, attain a degree of excellence, as a reward for 
all the previous years of patience, willingness, and 
self-sacrificing denial. Beware of the man or woman 
pretending to teach a short-cut method to either 
scholarship or saintliness. But take heed also lest 
you be deceived respecting the possibilities of an 
education for yourself, or the attainment of the 
highest New Testament standard of Christian ex- 
perience and life. 

Both mental culture and spiritual development 
must accept precept upon precept, line upon line, 
here a little and there a little. Both need atmos- 
phere and surroundings favorable to growth ; either 
of them may triumph over adverse conditions, mas- 
ter circumstances, and stand supreme in the midst 
of difficulties, by meeting the conditions essential 
to success. 

What is education? It is primarily a leading 
103 



104 Greatness of Little Things 

forth ; a training of the mental powers ; the infor- 
mation and enlightenment of the understanding ; the 
formation and regulation of the principles and the 
character ; the preparation and fitting for any calling 
or business. 

Channing said : "The true end of education is to 
unfold and direct aright our whole nature. Its office 
is to call forth power of every kind, — power of 
thought, affection, will, and outward action ; power 
to observe, to reason, to judge, to contrive ; power 
to adopt good ends firmly, and to pursue them effi- 
ciently ; power to govern ourselves and to influence 
others; power to gain and spread happiness. The 
young are to be helped to help themselves. They 
should be taught to observe and study the world in 
which they live, to trace the connections of events, 
to rise from particular facts to general principles, 
and then +o apply these in explaining new phe- 
nomena. " 

This power, as thus described, dwells within ; 
perhaps unknown to its possessor until awakened, 
until called out by processes simple, various, yet 
valuable. 

Dr. Beaumont said : "Knowledge is to be taught 
as nature teaches, — gently, softly, kindly; a little 
now and a little then, a little here and a little there, 
a little this way and a little that way. See how na- 



That Make for Education. 105 

ture trains her plants in the field, — the sunshine, the 
rain, the combination of air and soil, slowly, gradu- 
ally; germ, blossom, growth, form; then fruitage, 
awaiting the harvest." 

Dr. John Todd said : "Education begins with life. 
The touch first ministers to it ; afterwards the sight, 
and then the hearing. This is our guide in seeking 
to assist the progress of nature. We must begin 
with the present and tangible things ; we must then 
give absent things a visible form by picture; and 
the picture which meets the eye may lead to the 
description which finds its way to the mind only by 
the ear. Before we are aware, the foundations of 
character are laid, and no subsequent instruction can 
remove or destroy them." 

The urgent necessity of this leading forth, this 
development of brain power in order to measure up 
to the full requirement of nobility of character, is 
seen and felt every day and everywhere. No man 
should content himself with but meager attainment 
when it is possible for him to climb the mountain- 
side of intellectual excellence, and view with soul 
appreciation and satisfaction a wide world of beauty 
and activity, and there breathe the pure air of posi- 
tive conquest. The wealth of the ages is to-day laid 
at our feet. The problems with which men have 
struggled, and which have hindered them in their 



106 Greatness of Little Things 

progress, have been, or are being, solved for us; 
these accumulated treasures are present-day posses- 
sions, and for any man to die in poverty in the midst 
of plenty, to remain ignorant when truth and teach- 
ers are all about him, is a sad comment upon his am- 
bition, or his lack of it. 

Some men feel keenly the deprivation of early 
advantages, deplore sadly the circumstances of boy- 
hood that prevented study and the helping hand of 
instructors. These men are all the more anxious 
that their children and their neighbors' children 
should have that of which they were unfortunately 
deprived, and from their view-point seek to prevent 
a repetition of their experience by their children. 
The best facilities and the best instructors are none 
too good for them. 

But something more is needed than facilities. 
Richly equipped libraries, laboratories, mechanical 
contrivances, splendidly endowed institutions and 
well-qualified instructors in different departments of 
learning, may all fail in education, in leading out and 
expanding the power within of intellectual conquest. 
Men without these have become educated ; men with 
them have failed to rise above the ordinary. 

Channing said: "A man in earnest finds means, 
or, if he can not find, creates them. A vigorous pur- 
pose makes much out of little, breathes power into 



That Make; for Education. 107 

weak instruments, disarms difficulties, and even 
turns them into assistances. Every condition has 
means of progress, if we have spirit enough to use 
them." 

Hence, to begin with, the education of the man 
must originate within, or respond to the call from 
without. Education is for the man who is in earnest, 
the man or woman with a vigorous purpose, the in- 
dividual who resolves, who determines, who wills. 

Lack of purpose, absence of ambition, is a sure 
evidence of destined defeat. Unwillingness to un- 
dertake, or, if undertaken, to continue, has done 
more to stay the coming of a better intellectual dawn 
than all the other difficulties combined. It is true, 
talent and taste may be lacking, timidity may turn 
away a soul from so formidable a task as that of 
attacking error ; but these are difficulties easily over- 
come, if there has first been made the wish, the de- 
sire, the longing for intellectual power. Begin with 
easy things ; learn the simple elements of a task, of 
a service, of a book, and then will come, by and by, 
an enthusiasm, an excitement, a resistless abandon 
to reach the outer edges, or delve to the lowest strata 
of the subject in hand. 

A taste for reading can be acquired ; a talent for 
trade, for experiment, for discovery, for the putting 
of old truths in new and unusual forms, may be de- 



io8 Greatness of Little Things 

veloped; the uncertain and timid may reach such 
a state of certainty as to stand unmoved before an 
army of advocates and believers of false theories 
and old-time traditions. Only will it, and a world 
brings contributions to you, throws open her doors 
of unmined wealth. Only resolve, and the rich treas- 
ures of thought of all the ages may come, slowly 
but surely, to you as honey from many hives. Be 
determined, and the hand and eye and ear will be 
trained for service and become servants to the mind. 
This, then, is the first of little things that makes for 
education. 

i. Attention. 

That 's the cry of the drill-master, the call of the 
teacher, the necessity of the student. To fix the mind 
steadfastly upon this one subject in hand; to bring 
it back from it wanderings, and keep it at work, — 
this is essential to the mastery of the theme, neces- 
sary to mental development. 

In the intellectual world, how many and how 
strong are the inducements to leave the task at hand 
and consider other subjects, to try to do two things 
at once, and fail in both! The temptations in the 
mental world are just as many, and just as hard, and 
just as wicked as those in the realm of morals. 

Attend, then, to the task assigned; bring the 



That Make: for Education. 109 

mind to consider it; make a vigorous effort to ex- 
clude all other thoughts, all other calls, until at least 
you can go away from the task or truth, and yet so 
fix it in mind that, unconsciously and without evi- 
dent volition, your mind is still at work adjusting 
itself to the problem and considering the factors in- 
volved, or returns to the task with vigor and in- 
creased pleasure. 

Ask questions. A question is said to be next 
to an idea. Said Lord Bacon : "To ask questions is 
the half of knowledge." "Life without cross ex- 
amination," said Socrates, "is no life at all." Fol- 
low up the answer with other questions. Compare, 
form a judgment. Keep the mind on the subject; 
whether it be a statement of history, a question of 
science, a problem in mathematics, or a revelation 
in morals, ask questions, — not to cavil, but to know, 
and to bring all other truth into harmony with the 
one at hand, and to fix the mind attentively upon 
the truth stated. 

If the will has brought the mind to seek knowl- 
edge and possess power, and the habit of attention 
is formed, the second little thing that makes for edu- 
cation is that of 
2. Discipline. 

By constant repetition we soon make truth our 
own by daily training ; the mind is mastered, ceases 



no Greatness of Little Things 

to wander, becomes an obedient servant. By disci- 
pline the inert and nerveless fingers become active 
and responsive to the wish of the mind; then the 
power of self-mastery is attained. This makes the 
difference between the man of civilization and the 
barbarian; namely, the power of self-mastery, abil- 
ity to understand, and to reason, and to execute. 

It is not an altogether easy or delightful task, 
this of discipline. Most of us would rather pass 
carelessly and quickly from one thought to another, 
from one truth to another, staying just so long here 
or there as the thought or truth gave us temporary 
pleasure; then leaving it when its greater depths 
were opened up, or dismissing it altogether when it 
gave signs of serious study required, or became, as 
we say, "too deep." 

The failure to master, step by step, the lesson in 
hand, thinking that "this can be omitted; it will be 
more interesting farther along, and perhaps a little 
easier," has been the cause of much trouble and 
consequent intellectual weakness. These forts of the 
enemy must be conquered, or their guns at least 
silenced, else we shall have an annoying experience 
of an enemy both in front and in the rear. Make 
progress slowly but surely. 

That we shall never be able to master all the 
problems, even of a spear of grass, of a bird's wing, 



That Make; for Education. hi 

or the pebble at our feet ; that these and similar sim- 
ple objects may require a lifetime to fully discover 
and answer, is very evident. For they are a part of 
three great kingdoms. Therefore, we should be fool- 
ish to refuse to go forward until we know all about 
the first blade of grass, or the feather from the wing 
of a bird, or why and how and what of the grain of 
sand by the seashore. 

A survey of the vast world is the best we may 
be able to do ; but devotion to some one part of the 
vast world's treasures may be the call our being 
makes upon us. In this, and FOR this, long years 
and constant service in training and discipline is 
absolutely necessary. 

3. Teachers. 

From infancy to old age, in this matter of edu- 
cation, we shall have need of teachers. Man is the 
most helpless of all the animal creation, and needs, 
from the first, instruction, direction, training, and 
discipline. 

He who has gone ahead, comes back to tell us 
what he has seen, what he has learned, and to warn 
us of errors he has discovered, and encourage us by 
his experience and observations. How constantly do 
we need correction, advice, help, reproof, as well as 
sympathy, in the effort to become educated ! 



ii2 Greatness of Little Things 

We have been fortunate, in our day and gener- 
ation, in the excellence and number of well-trained 
and conscientious teachers, and in the advantages 
of a free public-school system. With the disadvan- 
tages of the past, or the folly that is seen in parents 
not taking advantage of opportunities granted them, 
there are a multitude of children in our public 
schools who, were it not for its freedom from cost, 
could not fit themselves properly for life's duties 
and responsibilities. We need teachers; we shall 
always need them. When we have passed out from 
schoolroom privileges, and away from restraints and 
rules of discipline, we shall find teachers everywhere, 
ready to help and encourage us, if we are wise 
enough to wish them and use them. 

There is not a speaker, be his speech public or 
private, but can teach us something. The possession 
of a teachable spirit is a great possession. To be 
willing to learn, to increase one's stock of knowledge 
from every source, eager to know, to compare, and, 
in turn, impart instruction . to others, makes life a 
great university — the men and women we meet, its 
teachers and instructors. 

As knowledge increases, the less critical one be- 
comes of the non-essentials in manner and style of 
these teachers. The wider vision of the vast ocean 
of truth humbles and subdues the truth-seeker, mak- 



That Make for Education. 113 

ing him wait, reverently, with suppressed anxiety, 
the revelation of knowledge by any and all agencies, 
high and low. 

Next to the living instructor and the aid of the 
schoolroom and the college are books, the living 
thoughts of the dead, or the present forceful facts 
of the absent, with which one may become liberally 
educated, if the first few steps of willingness, appli- 
cation, and discipline be taken. 

If in the realm of the intellectual any one ex- 
hortation above another should be given, let it be, 
"Give attention to reading!" Learn to love books; 
make them your choicest and closest companions. 
Read for information; read for culture; read for 
power. Master the best and truest thoughts of the 
age, and of the ages. Read history; read poetry; 
read descriptions of places and peoples; read es- 
says ; read sermons ; read biography ; read books of 
humor; read fiction; but be choice in this as you 
would be in the choice of other companionship. He 
can not be ignorant, lonely, or poor who has all the 
wisdom of all men and the thought of all time at 
his disposal. He is wise who will gather about him 
standard writings, adding to their number from time 
to time, until, in the presence of such company, he 
can defy all unrest, all perplexity, poverty, or sor- 
row, and become in turn a helper to the helpless. 
8 



ii4 Greatness of Little Things 

It is by precept upon precept, line upon line, 
here a little and there a little, that the innocent and 
ignorant pass into the company of the wise and pru- 
dent. It is not by the work of a day, nor merely the 
experience of a year, that men are made good or wise 
or great. The patient plodder, the resolute soul, 
making diligent application of time and strength and 
talent, submitting to tiresome discipline, attention 
to teachers whose truths, spoken or written, light 
up the way and make life broader and better, — this 
is the student who will become educated and make 
the most of life. 

Who is the educated man? There have been 
great minds that could drive a dozen sciences abreast, 
and manage well all of them. There have been lin- 
guists, who could speak and read and write thirty 
languages. But such men are few. Yet of edu- 
cated men there are many, and women too, who have 
trained themselves for the arts and sciences and 
economies of life, who yet may be but learners, or 
know but vaguely of many other things. 

I saw a man, rough and grim in appearance, 
pass around a locomotive engine, oil-can and wrench 
in hand, stop here and there in examination, adjust 
this, tighten that, apply oil where needed, then leap 
into the cab, and, in response to a signal, lay his 
hand upon the lever, move out and on across the 



That Make for Education. 115 

fields and streams, with that mighty engine and train 
of cars loaded with precious freight or still more 
precious lives, and do the deed with such calmness 
and assurance and sense of mastery, that I said : 
"Here is an educated man." He may have known 
little of books, less of language, nothing of esthetics, 
but his mechanical skill had been developed ; he had 
trained his hand, his eye, his brain, and in the po- 
sition he occupied he was worth a score of men who 
had mastered the theory, who had learning and cul- 
ture, but had no practical knowledge of the "iron 
horse," how to handle, feed, and manage him aright. 
I went into an electric-light and power plant; 
the dynamos were throbbing with life; the lights 
shone brightly, while a multitude of wire and deli- 
cately constructed instruments were here and there 
in orderly bewilderment. Properly clad, a man 
moved in and around, adjusting this, checking that, 
and then sat down amid the immense room of gener- 
ators and engines, just as calmly as a farmer would 
observe a field of growing corn, and took up a paper 
to read, to pass the time away, and learn what was 
going on in some other field of labor and of thought. 
Was he, too, an educated man? Had he reached 
that state of dignity and knowledge without thought 
or training or study? By the same processes of 
resolution, application, discipline, and instruction, he 



n6 Greatness of Little Things 

had arrived at that responsible place, as had the 
professor in the college or the judge on the bench. 

A well-known lecturer was giving a definition 
of education and the educated man, taking in the 
training of hand and eye and ear, as well as the 
brain — the ability to know and to do as a part of 
the process. A friend, who was a mechanic and 
knew his trade better than he knew books, said to 
him: "Smith, I can give you a better definition of 
an educated man than the one you gave." "Can 
you? What is it?" "An educated man," said the 
mechanic, "is a man who is on to his job." This 
may be commonplace and slang, but it has the merit 
of terseness and accuracy. But every such man, 
who knows how to do the task assigned him, may, 
by just such an experience and further study, be 
able to assign men himself to that place he occupies, 
and be "on to another job," requiring more skill 
and knowledge, in the same realm of mechanical 
science. 

A well-known college professor, lecturing lately 
before a college society, told the members that there 
were five principal evidences of education. The man 
or woman presenting these five evidences could be 
fairly called educated, whether by a college training 
or without any. The first evidence of education, he 
went on to say, was "correctness and precision in the 



That Make for Education. 117 

use of the mother tongue ;" the second, "refined and 
gentle manners, which are the expressions of fixed 
habits of thought and action ;" the third, "the power 
and habit of reflection ;" the fourth, "the power of 
growth;" and the fifth, "efficiency, or the power to 
do." Without these characteristics, knowledge can 
never become power, but in their possession lies the 
secret of gaining an education, no matter where that 
education is secured. 

Education means good English; do we speak it? 

Good manners ; do we observe them ? 

Good, hard thinking ; do we ever do any ? 

Good, steady growing; do we keep it up? 

Good work ; do we accomplish any ? 

Philip Gilbert Hamerton says that the intellectual 
life is really within the reach of every one who ear- 
nestly desires it. It is the constant preference for 
higher thoughts over lower thoughts. Books are 
necessary to such an education ; but books alone can 
not give the best part of it. No diploma confers or 
covers it. We can begin and finish it without ever 
entering a college. We can gain it for ourselves; 
when gained, no stranger can meet us, no comrade 
live beside us, without recognizing that we are edu- 
cated, and well educated, men or women. 

Our civilization is becoming more and more com- 
plex; multiplied industries and vast agencies are 



n8 Greatness of Little Things 

being developed, so that, from the public schools, 
colleges, and universities, men and women are com- 
ing to engage in life's duties with more or less of 
accumulated power. These should seek by constant 
effort, in whatever department of sendee or over- 
sight they may find themselves, to make each year, 
each month, nay, each day, a step in advance of all 
other previous attainments. "Line upon line, here 
a little there a little." But education, highest culture, 
like wealth or religion, fails of its highest purpose 
if sought merely for itself, or attained for self- 
gratification. The man who earns and saves and 
refuses to join in any public enterprise, or to co- 
operate in the development of material things, be- 
comes a miser, an abject object of contempt. The 
very religious man, whose holiness drives him into 
seclusion or to expressions of severe criticism of the 
activities of others in the busy marts of trade (a man 
without sympathetic helpfulness), becomes an ascetic 
or a fanatic, which state ends his growth and circum- 
scribes his usefulness. The educated man, to enrich 
and enjoy his stock of knowledge, must measure 
himself with others ; must submit to criticism as well 
as serve as critic ; should become a teacher to others ; 
for in no other way can that best be accomplished 
which is the primary idea of education — to lead 
out — than to communicate ideas to others. 



That Make for Education. 119 

While there may be much to depress in a com- 
munity, such as a missionary finds in a heathen land, 
yet every effort at enlightenment will draw upon the 
resources of the man, and cause him to devise ex- 
pedients whereby truth may be conveyed to the 
simple and ignorant about him. So it is every- 
where. Hence, if the educated man would retain 
and increase his power of thought and his measure 
of culture, let him impart to others. 

"I feel my deficiency," said a musician to an- 
other, "and I have concluded to find a teacher to 
help me." 

"Nonsense," exclaimed the other, "find a pupil 
instead of a teacher, and you will learn while you 
teach." 

It is not the imposition of our learning, our ideas 
of truth and our knowledge of fact and principle 
upon others, that will help them or us. It is the 
contact of truth-seekers, one with the other, as flint 
strikes flint, that produces the light. 

Determine to know, to learn from any source; 
apply the mind attentively ; go over and over the fact 
and the formula and the act, until it is your own 
by self-discipline; owe loyal allegiance to teachers; 
make yourself a faithful subject of Truth wherever 
found ; read books — the recognized standards ; study 
events ; become helpers to those who also are strug- 



120 Greatness of Littee Things 

gling up the mountain-side of truth and knowledge, 
till they stand beside you and rejoice in the wider 
vision of human and eternal life. 

One final and most important truth. The educa- 
tion of the man is but partial if only the intellect 
is cultured and disciplined by the processes already 
indicated. These principles and rules are most faith- 
fully taught and emphasized in the public schools 
and colleges of our land. 

Unless, however, the moral nature, the spirit life, 
which is superior to the intellectual as the mind is 
superior to the body, receives attention, all the vast 
wealth of the world's accumulation of thought and 
truth will be but the prelude to a magnificent ruin. 
"Know thyself;" but know God first and always. 
The conversion and culture of the soul is essential 
to the completion and permanency of mind-culture 
and the training and discipline of the powers of the 
intellect. 

Capacities may not be equal in the field of the 
intellect. All may not be wise in the wisdom of the 
world ; but soul sympathy, soul culture, soul growth 
is possible to all rational creatures, and that educa- 
tion which will bring the greatest satisfaction may 
be secured by communion and contact with Jesus 
Christ, who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. 



That Make for Education. 121 

Give God an attentive hearing; 

Compel allegiance to His law ; 

Maintain a teachable spirit ; 

Seek counsel of His Word ; 

Lead a prayerful life. 

Thus, with precept upon precept, line upon line, 

here a little and there a little, from the facts of nature 

and the experiences of life and the lessons of God's 

Word, will the processes of education be maintained. 



VII. 



Possibilities of Good from Things Ap- 
parently Evil. 

"And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good 
thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto 
him. Come and see" — John i, 46. 



VII. 

GOOD FROM EVIL. 

The long-looked-for Messiah had at last made 
His appearance. He had been the Desire of the 
nation, the expected One of the people Israel, 
throughout the centuries. He came in fulfillment 
of the promise made by the Father, that evil might 
not prevail forever ; came at the time foretold, at the 
place predicted, under circumstances long before de- 
scribed, In order to do God's will. His coming called 
out the glad chorus of thanksgiving and praise, both 
from the intelligences of heaven and the faithful 
and devout of earth. 

" Heaven and nature sang 
When earth received her King." 

He came, fulfilling the strange and marvelous de- 
scription that Isaiah had written of Him, that He 
should be a Son, yet the Mighty God, the Everlast- 
ing Father; One on whose shoulders the Govern- 
ment should rest, yet still a Man of Sorrows and 
deep acquaintance with grief. But when He came, 
those who had long looked for Him did not under- 
stand or welcome Him. He came to His own, and 
125 



i*6 Greatness of Little Things. 

His own received Him not. But as many as re- 
ceived Him, to them gave He power to become the 
sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. 

It was on His return from the wilderness and 
the Temptation that John, His forerunner, is priv- 
ileged to introduce Him to two of His disciples. 
"Looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Be- 
hold the Lamb of God ;" and the two disciples heard 
him speak and they followed Jesus. This is, then, 
the beginning of that mighty following which to-day 
encircles the globe, loyal loving hearts, determined 
on eternal fellowship. 

But in the midst of the blessed work of securing 
recruits for Jesus a difficulty unlooked for is en- 
countered; a prejudice met with, that was at least 
unexpected. He was from Nazareth ! It mattered 
not, if He came from the throne of Glory, came in 
the royal line of David and Solomon, came with the 
blessing and attested authority of Heaven itself : was 
it true that He stopped on that long journey, for 
awhile, at the despised village of Nazareth? Then 
surely there is something amiss ; for — can there any 
good thing come out of Nazareth? Right wisely 
does the patient Philip meet the objection of this 
prejudiced one by the only effective argument in 
such a case : "Come and see !" 

From this incident let us consider how it is pos- 



Good from Things Apparently Evil. 127 

sible that good may proceed from agencies, events, 
places apparently evil, at least from things despised, 
ignoble, and insignificant. Two factors are notice- 
ably the cause of this incredulous state in which we 
find ourselves respecting the possible good that may 
come from insignificant or evil sources, and they are 
our prejudice — an opinion without a reason — and 
our lack of faith in God. 

The wrath of man has again and again been made 
to praise Him who bringeth good out of evil. That 
which is small and despised has had in it elements 
of greatness, and possibilities of unquestioned good, 
in spite of our prejudice or our lack of faith in God. 
Dr. Cummings said: "Minute events are the hinges 
on which magnificent results turn. In a watch the 
smallest link, chain, or cog is as essential as the 
mainspring itself. If one falls out, the entire ma- 
chinery will stand still." It is well known that the 
art of printing, probably the parent of more good 
than all others, owes its origin to rude impressions 
taken, for the amusement of children, from letters 
carved on the bark of a beech-tree. This was a slight 
matter, which thousands would have passed over 
with neglect. The stupendous results of the steam 
engine may all be traced to an individual observing 
steam issuing from a bottle, just emptied, and placed 
casually close to a fire. So almost all the great dis- 



128 Greatness of Little Things. 

coveries in science were apparently stumbled upon. 
Their first intimations of usefulness were slight, but 
were not ignored or despised. To these intimations 
the world owes much for its present greatness in 
commercial and mechanical arts. They are the Naz- 
areths of science, out of which have come great 
good. Let them not be despised. 

But our theme does not demand from us a de- 
fense in behalf of evil. That would scarcely be 
possible. We are under no thanks to sin for any 
of the blessings we enjoy. No apparent good is 
ours because of the existence of evil. If we have 
been privileged to reach higher heights after having 
touched lowest depths, the thanks are due to Him 
who has had compassion upon us in our low and lost 
estate, has heard our cry, and has stooped to save us. 
All the good that has come to us, and may yet come, 
is because God loves. "All things work together for 
good to them that love God;" "For we are more 
than conquerors through Him that loved us;" and, 
"Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ;" not through sin, 
but through Christ. 

That which is apparently evil, or apparently 
small or inadequate, may not really be so. The 
weak things of earth have been chosen to confound 
the mighty. These may be weak, looking at them 



Good from Things Apparently Evil. 129 

from a human standpoint, but not so when we dis- 
cover that God is in them. They are the Davids that 
stand before the Goliaths of sin ; the Gideons, armed 
only with trumpets and lamps; the Moses and 
Aarons, with but a rod in the presence of Pharaoh 
and before the Red Sea. Yet above, and guiding 
the hand of a David, the insignificant stones in the 
shepherd's sling do effective work. There is the 
breath of the Almighty in the cry, "The sword of the 
Lord and of Gideon !" So, too, in all the ages past 
and in the centuries that are yet to come, the good 
that God has done, or may yet do, has a hiding-place 
in the despised things of earth. Paul saw a reason 
in this, and when discussing the doctrine of justifi- 
cation is led to say, "Not of works lest any man 
should boast;" and that "We have this treasure in 
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may 
be of God, and not of us." 

Our prejudices! How they cheat us out of 
blessings, and blind our eyes to higher values, and 
depreciate men and events of real worth! Our 
previously conceived notions of what is for the best 
may be far from correct. That which, under the 
blessing of God, may result in largest returns, does 
not always meet our approval or secure our co- 
operation. There is the possibility of good in the 
beginning of many movements that have, for sup- 
9 



130 Greatness of Little Things. 

port and advocacy, agencies and instruments un- 
heard of before, or despised because of fewness or 
feebleness. Note the beginnings of great reforms. 
See the men and means employed to carry them to 
success. Can any good thing come of such inade- 
quate agencies? Wait and see. If God is present, 
these feeble beginnings will not suggest the mighty 
proportions to which reformations grow, nor the 
efficiency of methods and means at first small and 
despised. 

In the sixteenth century an unknown yet vigor- 
ous monk took his stand against Papal Rome and 
her corrupt practices. He stood upon the clear 
declaration of the Word of God, "The just shall live 
by faith." He had no influence at court or among 
the nobility, yet this is the man called of God to do 
for Him and His children a needed and a long- 
delayed work. Looking at him and at his surround- 
ings, one would be a bold prophet indeed who would 
have said : "There is the possibility of great good in 
this man apparently destitute of the very forces of 
real greatness." 

So also in the eighteenth century, when vital 
piety had seemingly died out from the homes and 
hearts of our English ancestry, God looked down 
into that parsonage home at Epworth. and forth- 
with the preliminaries for a mighty revolution in 



Good from Things Apparently Evil. 131 

aggressive Church work along evangelist lines began 
to arrange themselves, and Methodism is the result. 
Men sneered and stormed and defied ; but opposition 
was overcome, prejudice gave way, and the possi- 
bilities of good from such insignificant sources were 
at last unquestioned. Can any good thing come 
from Erfurt and Wittenberg? Protestantism an- 
swers : "Come and see." The temporal power of the 
pope reached its highest assumption of arrogance 
in that day, and the tide began to turn when Luther 
and his little band stood out in behalf of an open 
Bible, liberty of the individual conscience, and the 
doctrine of justification by faith. 

Can any good thing come from Epworth and 
Oxford? Methodism, in its extended branches of 
closely allied fellowship, replies: "Come and see." 
Churches in even* community; schools and colleges 
scattered far and w r ide ; a religious press, with publi- 
cations singing the truth in every language ; millions 
of children gathered together week after week for 
Bible study, and instruction in active service for 
Christ, — all this, and more, at home and abroad, tell 
of results from small beginnings. 

So has it been with every movement against in- 
iquity and in behalf of organized effort for the sup- 
pression of vice. Great reforms do not begin with 
the masses, but with the individual. If a system of 



132 Greatness of Little Things. 

human slavery is to be attacked and overthrown, 
the beginnings of that revolution must pass through 
the dark days, through humiliating scenes of ridicule 
and violence. But from the disgraceful acts of mobs, 
the burning of houses, the destruction of property, 
the movement gained substantially until it called to 
its support argument, fact, publicity, members, and 
enlisted sympathy and moral support ; it then moved 
on to success : for God was in it. Are there to-day 
moral, social, or political movements, in or out of 
the Church — movements aimed at the destruction 
and complete overthrow of great evils, or designed 
to secure a better state of affairs in society? They 
may have originated unhappily, may be advocated 
by those poorly qualified in many particulars to help 
the cause along; but, in spite of unfortunate origin, 
in spite of prejudice, notwithstanding the feebleness 
of the support, these reforms of a philanthropic na- 
ture will in time exhibit to the world a proportion 
and a dignity that will entitle them to universal re- 
spect. It may be the reform in international arbi- 
tration that will dissolve to peaceful pursuits vast 
standing armies ; it may refer to a confederation of 
Churches of like faith and doctrine that shall confer 
together in the interest of economy and efficiency 
respecting colleges, publications, missions, local 
Churches, refusing to enter fields already occupied 



Good from Things Apparently Evil. 133 

by Churches of like faith, or to overlap each other 
in fields at home or abroad. Or it may be there has 
begun an agitation that looks to fitness and capa- 
bility in the civil service, rather than to partisan zeal 
or complexion in color; or, better still, an uprising 
of a long-suffering class against a gigantic evil ; a 
movement that has been slow and perhaps at times 
devious, yet always against a common enemy, at 
times engineered by noble men and women, and then 
directed by those whose motives may have been ques- 
tioned, against whom there may exist great preju- 
dice, but whose ultimate object may be hailed with 
unsurpassed delight, — the prohibition of the liquor- 
traffic. 

These and kindred reforms contain the germ of 
great good, though they may be surrounded by the 
husks or shells of apparent evil. When inclined to 
doubt the outcome of any desirable good because of 
its origin or support, remember Bpworth and the 
Wesleys; remember Erfurt and Luther; remember 
Nazareth and the Master Himself, who said that 
out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God has 
perfected praise. 

Can any good come out of evil? "Come and 
see." The little group of patient followers along the 
shores of Galilee and the Jordan has grown to a 
vast multitude of earnest and aggressive people, 



134 Greatness of Little Things. 

going among all nations, in all climes. These fol- 
lowers of the Nazarene are among the advance 
guards of civilization — the pioneers of deepest 
thought and highest attainments in culture. There 
is nothing in the religion of Christ that is detrimental 
to the freest discussion or the most careful investi- 
gation. The Christly spirit has founded all our col- 
leges with scarce an exception; has been the best 
patron of the press, and the most conspicuous ex- 
ample of popular speech. If, in this enlightened 
age — an age of popular inquiry and general infor- 
mation ; a state of things made possible only by the 
Gospel and its influence — if, in this enlightened age, 
the good that has come to us from Nazareth could 
not stand the glare of public criticism, the brilliancy 
of this twentieth century, then would its supporters 
cease to found colleges, establish newspapers, send 
out into all the world its advocates to cope with the 
skill and learning of its enemies. The method of 
propagation would be secret intrigues, falsehood ut- 
tered where truth could not come to counteract, a 
system of error perpetuating systems of popular 
ignorance. Such is not the case. Light and liberty 
are ours because of Christ and Nazareth. 

Contrast our position with the position of those 
nations who have not the gospel. Who fears the 
result of a comparison of the condition of the aver- 



Good from Things Apparently Evil. 135 

age Spirit-filled believer in, and partaker of, the re- 
ligion of Christ, with the best examples of any of the 
religions of heathendom ? As it respects childhood, 
one may see the superiority, the Divinity of the 
Nazarene, in His instruction and influence concern- 
ing the sacredness of human life. Infanticide or 
criminal negligence, in the case of the child, has no 
encouragement among those who remember the Babe 
of Bethlehem and the Boy of Nazareth. But the 
motherly feeling in darkened lands has been be- 
numbed by the deadening influence of nature-wor- 
ship and superstition, or else has been sacrified to a 
supposed demand of an offended Deity. That which 
some look back upon as the happiest of life's experi- 
ences — childhood — has no sweet memories where 
Christ is unknown. Come and see the good that has 
flowed as a sparkling stream from Nazareth's rocky 
hills, making rich and happy the homes of all who 
dwell beside its banks. Each rollicking group of 
merry-hearted boys and girls speaks of Christ and 
of Nazareth. Such scenes are only possible where 
human life is held sacred, and where due regard is 
had for the child and its mother. The more thor- 
oughly the investigation is pursued, the more thor- 
oughly will all prejudiced Nathanaels be convinced 
that not only some good may, but that all good has, 
come to us from Nazareth, through Christ our Lord. 



136 Greatness of Little Things. 

Let no one despise the place, the agent, the means 
from which great good is reported to have come. 
It is possible and very probable that God has chosen 
to put His Spirit in the simple and despised things 
of earth in order to call out the wonder and praise 
and adoration of men. He was wiser than Nathan- 
ael, who said : "If this work be of men, it will come 
to nought ; but if it be of God, ye can not overthrow 
it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against 
God." "Beloved," said John, "try the spirits 
whether they are of God." Let our judgments be 
not merely from appearances, but be righteous judg- 
ments. With God all things are possible. He may 
have it in the order of His providences that some 
slight thing, some little word, some frail deed, shall 
effect a revolution, produce a conversion, form a 
character, secure a change, and such a change as 
shall be felt even in eternity. Let not prejudice or 
unbelief defraud us of a possible blessing ; for there 
is always the possibility of great good from things 
apparently evil — from things insignificant and trivial. 



VIII. 

Possibilities of Evil from Things Appar- 
ently Good. 

"And the man of God wept. And Hazael said, Why 
weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I 
know the evil that thou will do unto the children 
of Israel." — 2 Kings viii, ii, 12. 



VIII. 
EVIL FROM GOOD. 

During that interesting period of English his- 
tory known as the War of the Roses, the contending 
party against the house of Lancaster, whose ensign 
was a red rose, had for its leader the Earl of Salis- 
bury, and his son, the Earl of Warwick. This War- 
wick is known in the annals of history as the king- 
maker, a title well adapted to describe his political 
influence and his power among the leaders of that 
troublous time. The title takes us back to another 
time, when God conferred such a name upon a man 
more worthy to bear it, who made and unmade rulers 
for the nations under the direction of the King of 
kings Himself. 

Elijah, by the hand of Elisha, anoints Hazael 
to be Syria's king; Elisha, by the hand of a name- 
less messenger, crowns Jehu king in the place of 
Joram, son of the wicked Ahab, over the kingdom 
of Israel. "And it came to pass that they who 
escaped the sword of Hazael, Jehu slew; and they 
that fled from Jehu, Elisha slew ;" and thus, through 
vigorous means, changes were brought about accord- 
ing to the word of the Lord. 
139 



140 Greatness of Little Things. 

The devices of men are thus brought to naught 
through appointed agents; these agents have their 
authority from One in whose hands are the reins of 
all governments. From an historical standpoint, 
Warwick was surpassed by Elijah as "king-maker." 
From the standpoint of a believer in an overruling 
Providence, God, who putteth down one and setteth 
up another, is truly the "King-maker" of all nations, 
and throughout all time ! 

In the study of the events of Elisha's day we are 
confronted with the fact that good men are often 
unwilling witnesses of great evils. Before the 
prophet stands a young man of noble appearance, 
fair countenance, just arrived from his master, the 
king of Syria, on an errand concerning the king's 
health. When the question was asked and answered 
— answered in that doubtful way which indicated 
death, but not the result of his present sickness — 
then it was that the prophet settled his countenance 
steadfastly upon the young man, looking with that 
feeling of pity and deep sorrow of heart, which 
caused the young man to be embarrassed and to ask : 
"Why weepest thou, my lord?" And Elisha an- 
swered : "Because I know the evil that thou wilt do 
unto the children of Israel." Then, with increased 
emotion, this man of God revealed to him the depth 
of iniquity that lay concealed in his own nature, 



Evil from Things Apparently Good. 141 

gave a vivid description of the desolation he would 
bring about, what cruelties he was capable of com- 
mitting, and how he would destroy by fire and sword 
the finest cities and the choicest of God's people. 
Then Hazael, astonished at the revelation of the 
prophet, and, like all men when their worst nature 
is discovered or the possibility of great crime is sug- 
gested, exclaims: "But what, is thy servant a dog, 
that he should do this great thing?" Then it seemed 
more probable, when the prophet added : "The Lord 
hath shewed me that thou shalt be king over Syria." 
With that vision before his mind, Hazael went out 
from before the prophet a changed man. The evil 
nature within grew rapidly, and before another sun- 
set-time he was a murderer, and sat in royal state 
on the throne of his former master. 

For forty-five years he ruled, and though leagued 
against him were both Judah and Israel, his triumphs 
were complete. He would have marched against 
Jerusalem itself, and destroyed it, but was bribed 
to retire without accomplishing his plan. All the 
towns and cities east of Jordan were wrested from 
Israel, their inhabitants treated in a most ferocious 
manner, — all in accord with the vision seen by the 
prophet, at a time when all in his life seemed so fair 
and promised so well for goodness. 

What an example have we here of the possibility 



142 Greatness of Little Things. 

of evil from that which was, from all appearance, 
good ! All that was needed to make the man a mon- 
ster was the prospect of success of some ambitious 
scheme, and lo! the work is done. That which at 
first thought shocked the man into a vigorous resent- 
ment, soon became a secret passion, until crystal- 
lized into hardened crime. 

The hand that caresses may carry in its veins 
the blood of a murderer. In every man's nature 
there is this awful possibility of evil, that makes 
Divine grace and power an absolute necessity among 
men. The playful spirit manifested in the tiger's 
lair, when the family of young and old are undis- 
turbed, gives no intimation of the dormant fierce- 
ness that may be aroused in a moment of time. Let 
the tiger of human hate and vengeance be unloosed 
and who shall chain him again? The Orientals 
have a proverb, "Keep the red dog tied ;" for when 
once released, who can tell what words of malice, 
what slander, what unkind speeches, the tongue 
may speak? Therefore, "keep the red dog tied." 

"I wish somebody would burn his barn," said a 
man of high character, in one of those petulent sea- 
sons that may come to any man when a wrong has 
been done by a neighbor. Nobody thought anything 
about it, not even the man himself, until after it was 
uttered ; then the idea shocked, but haunted him. 



Evil from Things Apparently Good. 143 

That building, filled with the product of the farm — 
with choice farming implements, excellent live 
stock — stood close to the road, and was a constant 
reminder of his wish as he passed and repassed. 

One night, after a fresh provocation, a sudden 
blaze lighted up the sky and brought out an alarmed 
community. In an unsuspected ravine near the 
burning barn this man was found, where, with a 
broken leg and a battered lantern, he had fallen hop- 
ing to escape unnoticed. 

"Is it possible?" was the question from every 
one. Yes, in every man ungoverned, uncontrolled, 
unmastered, there is this awful possibility. Beware, 
then, of evil thoughts, evil words, evil influences; 
for unless saved and kept by power Divine, there 
may be awakened in the best apparently of men 
the very worst of their nature. 

A company of young people are spending the 
evening in a social manner. There is music, and 
conversation, and social enjoyment, because there 
is sense and satisfaction. Some one brings forth 
some curious-looking pasteboards, and a number 
gather about a table while the cards are being dis- 
tributed. Can evil come from a thing like that, so 
apparently good? Look beyond. The gambling 
spirit, more or less strong in every man, is quickly 
aroused, and these same tools, fingered by fair and 



144 Greatness of Little Things. 

faultless hands that night, are clutched in the not 
far future by those whose touch has been polluted 
by the wine-cup and the dagger. More than one 
Elisha has wept at the sight of a group of innocent 
beginners at the card-table, who from that first game 
go out to kill time, and be killed in character by 
those who lie in wait for their coming, far removed 
from those where first they learned the easy lessons 
that led to perdition. There 's the look of apparent 
good in the early stages ; but further along there is 
evil, and only evil. You should not want burglars' 
tools in your keeping, nor counterfeiters' dies or 
stencils, nor gamblers' outfit, with which to familiar- 
ize the young and innocent with deeds too dark to 
mention. A thousand other games, innocent yet 
instructive, may be devised, that do not carry with 
them such evil associations, or lead into such evil in- 
fluences or to such results as these! 

The parlor must be kept pure, or the home and 
the heart will gather to itself the impurities of the 
street, the saloon, and the place of social resort, 
through the parlor. It may be refined and elevated, 
or it may be degraded. Therefore, keep the parlor 
pure. 

But some will argue, Shall we not keep our sons 
and daughters from the public dance by an encour- 
agement of the home and parlor amusements with a 



Evil, from Things Apparently Good. 145 

select company of friends from their own circle, and 
restrict their dancing to that number? Never was 
there a greater mistake made than that which under- 
takes to ward off a great evil by instruction and en- 
couragement in the fascination of the fundamental 
elements of that same evil. The door of the parlor 
can not be so guarded as not to admit in some form 
or other — by the admission of these practices of the 
promiscuous gatherings — the suggestions of such 
places, as well as the atmosphere that breeds moral 
disease and leaves its poison in passions inflamed, 
and, unless speedily counteracted, drives its victims 
to moral death. The possibility of evil is not a 
question, from this form of apparent good. Anxious 
mothers, discreet fathers, watchful pastors, and all 
good people generally, weep when they know of 
the beginning or growth of this form of so-called 
amusement. They know what it will do, as Elisha 
knew the result of Hazael's life; and they lift the 
warning word, Beware ! How people can hope to be 
wise and good, how they can expect to increase 
habits of virtue and industry, or how they can call 
this foolish, harmful, vicious practice of dancing an 
apparent good, is difficult to tell. The hours of idle- 
ness it has encouraged; the habits of sobriety in 
thought and life it has broken up; the doors to a 
religious life it has closed and bolted (and never 
10 



146 Greatness of Little Things. 

opened) ; the influences of good from the home, the 
school, the Church, it has quenched, aside from the 
avenues of dark days and shameful lives it has 
opened, — makes it the genteel yet unscrupulous rob- 
ber of society's best ornaments — innocence, purity, 
piety, of youth and social life. When people begin 
to dance they forget to pray. When prayer is neg- 
lected, God is out of mind. If it is disastrous for a 
nation to forget God, the beginning of that disaster 
is when its individual citizens fail to retain a knowl- 
edge of the Creator. Woe to us when God goes out 
of life because the dance has come in ! 

The theater has its defenders, and for its appar- 
ent good there are those who would argue long and 
learnedly that no harm or evil can come therefrom. 
Let us not hide the awful sense of alarm and sorrow 
that we feel as we look into this institution of vice, 
and read the story of its immorality, and forecast its 
future. The great tragedian Macready would never 
allow his daughter to enter the theater. A recent 
memoir of an actor of brilliant genius, written by 
his daughter, states that his children, during their 
childhood, were kept from everything connected 
with his profession. A son of this actor, on being 
recently consulted by a soldier's orphan daughter in 
reference to going on the stage, earnestly entreated 
her to abandon the idea, on account of the immor- 



Evil from Things Apparently Good. 147 

ality of such a life. Another eminent actor, George 
Vandenhoff, on quitting the profession for the bar, 
gave the following gratuitous advice to any ingen- 
ious youth thinking of becoming an actor: "Go to 
sea ; go into the law ; go to the Church ; go to Italy 
and strike a blow for liberty ; go to anything or any- 
where that will give you an honest and decent liveli- 
hood, rather than go upon the stage. To any young 
lady with a similar proclivity, I would say: Buy a 
sewing-machine and take in plain sewing; so shall 
you save much sorrow, bitter disappointment, and 
secret tears." 

Hannah More speaks thus: "I do not hesitate 
for a moment to pronounce the theater to be one 
of the broadest avenues that lead to destruction; 
fascinating, no doubt it is, but on that account the 
more delusive and the more dangerous. Let a young 
man once acquire a taste for this species of enter- 
tainment, and yield himself up to its gratification, 
and he is in great danger of becoming a lost char- 
acter, rushing upon his ruin. All the evils that can 
waste his property, corrupt his morals, blast his repu- 
tation, impair his health, embitter his life, and de- 
stroy his soul, lurk in the purlieus of a theater. Vice 
in every form lives and moves and has its being 
there. Myriads have cursed the hour when they 
first exposed themselves to the contamination of the 



148 Greatness of Little Things. 

stage. Light and darkness are not more opposed 
to each other than the Bible and the play-book. If 
the one be good, the other must be evil. If the 
Scriptures are to be obeyed, the theater must be 
avoided. The only way to justify the stage as it is, 
as it has been, as it is ever likely to be, is to con- 
demn the Bible. The same individual can not de- 
fend both." 

"The peril of the theater," said Dr. Cuyler, "is 
to purity of character. Your eyes and ears are 
windows and doors to the heart. What enters once, 
never goes out. Photographs taken on the memory 
are not easily effaced or burned up ; they stick there, 
and often become tempters and tormentors for a 
lifetime. The whole trend of the average American 
stage is hostile to heart-purity. A converted actor 
once said to his pastor while passing a play 'house, 
'Behind those curtains lies Sodom.' As an insti- 
tution, the American theater tolerates sensual im- 
purity in its performers, and presents scenes of im- 
purity to its patrons. If you become one of its 
patrons, you go into moral partnership with the 
theater." 

Bishop Vincent said : "The tendency of the the- 
ater is, on the whole, exceedingly bad. This state- 
ment can not be contradicted. Therefore, let who 
will patronize it, the motto of the consistent, earnest, 



Evil from Things Apparently Good. 149 

unselfish Christian youth must be, 'Better not.' And 
we say seriously to young people who, although not 
Christians, really want to be, This is a good, safe 
rule for you touching the theater, 'Better not/ The 
whole question of patronage of the theater depends 
upon the legitimate uses of the dramatic taste and 
the dramatic power. What may be wholesome in 
rhetorical and oratorical expression may, with spec- 
tacular accompaniments, produce overwrought im- 
aginations and do damage to both the intellectual 
and moral elements in man. . . . The spiritual 
nature that needs culture by the contemplation of 
the unseen may be so dazzled as to be benumbed 
and deadened by the vividness, boldness, and splen- 
dor of the spectacular display. There are lights too 
brilliant for one to look at, if he would keep his eyes 
adjusted to delicate service." 

Did you ever notice the effort that is made by 
some people to hide the possibilities of evil by mod- 
ifying it with the word "quiet" — a "quiet" game of 
cards, a "quiet" dance, or a "quiet" attendance upon 
the theater? There may be forms of evil that are 
less destructive, simply because they are "quiet." 
That they do not disturb others is no sign that they 
may not develop in one's own self a disregard for 
the feelings and rights of others, and by and by be 
outbreaking, arrogant, and destructive. The prog- 



150 Greatness of Little Things. 

ress in sin and a sinful life is simple : first we abhor ; 
then we endure ; then we "quietly" practice ; then we 
embrace. "Quiet sin" is sin, nevertheless ! 

It is no less a sin in the eyes of Him who, look- 
ing upon its apparent innocence, sees the beginning 
of the criminal life and of the abandoned soul. Be- 
ware of the "quiet" beginnings of great sins! 

The institution of the Sabbath is often desecrated, 
at first, in this way. What is done in the way of 
labor or recreation has had this consideration to 
mitigate the offense: "It was done quietly." A 
"quiet" buggy-ride for pleasure may result in a very 
loud and defiant disregard for God's law and gov- 
ernment itself. If not, the end of the evil may 
be seen in the encouragement it may give to others 
who are not disposed to consider its influence and 
effects. 

The drink habit has often grown in intensity, 
and become more and more disastrous, because 
looked upon as only a trifle at first, and its hideous- 
ness in the end unconsidered and unimagined. The 
drunkard, as well as the Sabbath-breaker, at first 
took easy lessons. It would be impossible to com- 
mit the crime of a Sabbath profaner or of confirmed 
drunkenness, all at once and upon the first step. 
These practices, as well as all evil habits, have a be- 
ginning. Their first steps are not so difficult ; their 



Evil from Things Apparently Good. 151 

first offenses not so repulsive ; their quiet committal 
did not seem so objectionable. But, with the vision 
of an Elisha, one might see in the countenance of 
these Hazaels the possibility of a continued life of 
increasing wickedness, and the end one of awful 
despair. Keep shy of these enticing Delilahs if you 
would retain your moral strength. For who can 
tell how strong he is when practices apparently 
good and innocent invite his companionship? One 
may stand where a thousand have fallen ; and, again, 
one may fall where hundreds have passed in safety. 
"Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest 
he fall." "See that ye walk circumspectly." Walk 
with care; remember the influence of little things, 
and beware ! 

"Sow a deed, reap a habit; 

"Sow a habit, reap a character; 

"Sow a character, reap a destiny." 



IX. 

Lessons Learned Too Late. 

'O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! 
Then hadst thy peace been as a river and thy 
righteousness as the waves of the sea" 

— Isaiah xlviii, 18. 



IX. 
LESSONS LEARNED TOO LATE. 

When Charles IX of France, who gave the order 
for the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, was 
dying, bathed in his own blood, he exclaimed : "What 
blood ! what murders ! I know not where I am. 
How will all this end? I am lost forever, and I 
know it." 

"Ah! Mr. Harvey," said a dying man to that 
excellent minister, "the day in which I ought to have 
worked is over. And now I see a horrible night ap- 
proaching, bringing with it the blackness of darkness 
forever." 

Such are the expressions of remorse of those who 
learn, too late, lessons that are of no avail. It might 
have been well for all such if the active faculties of 
the mind and soul could have been deadened to the 
awful facts of a mistaken life; dead to the scenes 
of blessedness that came in sight, then vanished 
never to return, except in taunting, tantalizing 
vision. Our Lord put it into the mouth of Abraham 
to say to the distressed Dives in his place of torment : 
"Son, remember! Remember that thou in thy life- 
i55 



156 Greatness of Little Things. 

time hadst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus 
his evil things." In this declaration Jesus clearly 
meant to convey the awful truth that it was indeed 
not only possible to learn when the lesson so received 
would be of no avail, but also that there will always 
be before such tardy students the barrier that sepa- 
rates, but does not conceal, the bliss of a rejected 
truth. 

Said Professor Swing : "It is most pitiful that we 
all see the greatest duties of the world only in the 
solemn hour when we are leaving it. We are wil- 
lingly blind to the great things around us, and as 
the prodigal son, when he had found the desert 
world, looked back, and for the first time saw the 
sweetness of his father's house, so we wander away 
in our vanity and folly, and at last, from a bed of 
bodily disease and spiritual husks and rags, look 
back and see the matchless charms of an age and a 
land to which we are bidding farewell. This is not 
Nature's fault or plan. It is her revenge. She gives 
us a glimpse of the glory we declined to pursue and 
accept." 

The prophet Isaiah looked with sad heart and 
deep emotion upon the sorrows of a people who had 
been patiently taught and earnestly pleaded with, but 
who had persistently refused to hear and heed his 
words of instruction. It was no satisfaction to him, 



Lessons Learned Too Late. 157 

or to any good man, to note the coming of the ca- 
lamity he had been privileged to foretell. It only 
increased his grief to behold the misery of a people 
who heard a warning voice, had been instructed in 
right doing, yet had received too late the lesson to 
profit thereby — at least too late to turn aside the pre- 
dicted evil. These sad facts of history cry aloud 
their warnings to all the future. They are bits of 
instruction for those who, passing that way, may, 
if wise, profit thereby. So the grief-stricken prophet 
— recalling his words of warning, remembering their 
rejection, and marking the disastrous effects of dis- 
obedience and arrogance— breaks forth into the lan- 
guage of regret, saying : "O that thou hadst heark- 
ened to my commandments ! Then had thy peace 
been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves 
of the sea !" 

The statesman, also, is a seer. He stands upon 
a loftier eminence than that occupied by the people, 
and from that standpoint is an observer of the tend- 
encies of his people and the times in which they 
live. In spite of argument and appeal, contrary to 
reason and judgment, decisions are made, policies 
are entered in upon, leaders are chosen, resulting 
disastrously. Then, with grief and regret, the states- 
man exclaims, after the deed has been done that can 
not be undone : "O that thou hadst hearkened to my 



158 Greatness of Little Things. 

commandments, that thou hadst considered my 
warning ! Then had thy peace been as a river, and 
thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." Such 
also is the feeling of the teacher whose pupils are 
heedless of his instruction; so also the grief of 
parents over wayward children — of pastors at the 
bedside of wrecked manhood and womanhood, where 
grief over misspent lives recall timely warnings ; 
where penitence secures pardon, but fails to undo 
all the evil that waywardness has caused. Lessons 
that might have been learned without the bitterness 
of experience, loss, grief; lessons that might have 
been learned before it was too late to stay the tear 
of mother, the lament of teacher, the sorrow of pas- 
tor, or the penalty of disease or the punishment of 
the State. 

■ Be wise to-day ! 'T is madness to defer." 

If after all the centuries of experiment, men have 
not found that good could come by doing evil, why 
should we persist in trying the same? Lessons 
learned by others when it was too late to be of value 
to them, may yet serve us well, if we are willing to 
profit by their experiences. The burnt child not 
only will dread the fire, but, by his scars, beg and 
beseech others to avoid the fatal contact. 



Lessons Learned Too Late. 159 

1. Lessons of the Temperate Life. 

"No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God." 
But men say, "We '11 not be drunkards." They will 
drink, but will stop drinking the fiery liquid before 
the senses are destroyed, — before the soul, created 
in God's image of reason and righteousness, is made 
idiotic by strong drink. Year after year they tamper 
with and toil against the tide, trying to prove untrue 
the truth of God. Against him coming with un- 
steady step — or even with the poison upon his 
breath — the gates of social purity are shut, employ- 
ment is denied, love grows sullen and disappears, 
and the kingdom of grace closes her portals. If 
at last, by a resolute will, aided by Divine love, the 
drinker reforms and seeks the path of sobriety, he 
may wish, and wish in vain, to be back where the 
paths parted, and where first he was assigned a les- 
son he refused to learn. Go where he will, the ex- 
convict can not find the place where innocence left 
him and felony became a part of his history. If he 
could, what pilgrimages he would make to get where 
the deed had never been done ; where the conscious- 
ness of wrong doing was not only absent, but not 
a part either of any other being in all God's uni- 
verse. 



160 Greatness of Little Things. 

John B. Gough looked back upon seven years 
counted as worse than lost, as a period of blackness 
that stood out in horror before him. Lessons learned 
that late are seven years that can never be regained ; 
seven years of sin and self-degradation ; seven years 
that might have put him far along in moral likeness 
to Him who knew no sin, though the Friend of sin- 
ners. Do you know of men who have hoped to live 
until they should reform, and yet in the end have 
failed? These are our teachers. They learned, too 
late for them, that a day is too long to put off obedi- 
ence to God. Their life is like the troubled sea, 
which can not rest, whose waters cast up mire and 
dirt. Better far that men should take the Word of 
God as their guide than to be compelled to contem- 
plate these sad experiences, and bemoan their folly 
and their loss. 

2. Lessons of Social Purity. 

Virtue is its own reward. Vice is sure of pun- 
ishment. A life of strict integrity and purity may 
seem, to some, so dull, so devoid of spice and expe- 
rience, that the temptation to escape the exactions 
of the narrow path often prove successful. Stolen 
waters are said to be sweet; but at the last, how 
bitter, bitterly bitter, do they become! "Surely," 
said the Tempter, "if you but taste, you will be as 



Lessons Learned Too Late. ioi 

gods, knowing good and evil." They tasted, and 
evil they knew, and all the world has known, alas ! 
after it is too late ! Better not to know, if the knowl- 
edge brings such disaster. The dark river may be 
called upon to hide from a cruel world a shame the 
victim can not, will not face. The questions of right 
and wrong have but one answer. These problems 
are not hard to solve. In fact, both in revelation 
and experience the answers are written out so plainly 
that, if we will, we can not help but know them. 
Why, then, tamper ? Why experiment ? Why learn 
by the hard and remorseful way of trial, when the 
lesson will be too late to serve with advantage ? To 
these morally corrupt, disease-tainted, sorrow-laden 
souls God's Word cries in anguish : "O that thou 
hadst hearkened to my commandments ! Then had 
thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as 
the waves of the sea \" 

3. Lessons about Money. 

Said the Wise Man : "There is a sore evil which 
I have seen under the sun ; namely, riches kept for 
the owners thereof to their hurt." It is a pathetic 
lesson taught every day and everywhere, but whose 
truths are so seldom heeded, — this blinding, per- 
verting, degrading, selfish love of money. Men and 
women are to be commended for the industrious, 



162 Greatness of Little Things. 

economical, and judicious habit of wealth accumu- 
lation ; but are surely to be pitied when those hard- 
earned dollars are dissipated by children who know 
little of their cost, and care less. When wealth in- 
creases, without a corresponding increase of the be- 
nevolent spirit, it is at the expense of those nobler 
qualities that bind together in sympathetic compact 
all the children of men, and strengthen the tie that 
unites us all to God. No man can afford to pay so 
high a price for all the wealth the world contains; 
for our hold upon property is not permanent. Riches 
make themselves wings — can only be made secure 
when they enter into affection, sympathy, well doing, 
and well being. No longer will wealth be ours when 
death has laid his heavy hand upon us, and separated 
all material things from the spiritual being. "Lay 
up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither 
moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do 
not break through nor steal." The bestowment of 
gifts in large amounts at one time, is neither com- 
mended by results or by the Word of God, as 
compared to the regular and constant and watchful 
giving practiced all through life, as God has pros- 
pered. Those who have watched the wasteful and 
subvertive processes of courts in adjustment of es- 
tates, have often wished that a few years of personal 
supervision of his gifts might have been the privilege 



Lessons Learned Too Late. 163 

and blessedness of the giver himself. No man, or set 
of men, can possibly carry out the intentions as 
economically or as wisely and well as the testator, as 
he himself could have done while living. When 
Samuel J. Tilden died he left a will for the distri- 
bution of his great wealth, which was set aside by 
the courts, and his estate divided and distributed 
elsewhere. Dr. D. K. Pearson, of Chicago, hearing 
of it, said: "If any man could have written a will 
that could not be set aside by the courts, that man 
was Samuel J. Tilden, of New York. I will proceed 
to give away my estate while living." Of the "fresh- 
water colleges" that have been benefited, two things 
may be said : First, each dollar given by Dr. Pearson 
has brought another, or two, and sometimes three 
and four, by the conditional methods employed. 
Second, those same colleges rejoice, not only in the 
gifts from this and other sources, but also in the 
remarkable increase in the individual wealth of Dr. 
Pearson since he began to be his own administrator. 
If they are not additionally benefited, others will be. 
Even when money is personally kept under one's 
own supervision, and the children are denied its use 
in small measure and in a co-operative way, they 
are deprived also of that wise counsel and discreet 
assistance in its management that none but father 
or mother may be able to give. 



164 Greatness of Little Things. 

"Had I a boy and one hundred thousand dollars, 
I should keep the two as far apart as possible." is 
credited to a recent member of the United States 
Congress. Men who have come up from the ranks, 
who have known what denial of self and subjection 
of spirit means, as well as the valuable lessons of in- 
dustry and economy and judicious investment of 
time and means, could wish no better experience and 
result for their children than they themselves have 
had. 

Let the failures of others be a lesson that bene- 
fits, before it is too late ! The best gift any man can 
bestow upon his child is a good name. If this be 
done, it will be followed by careful instruction in the 
fundamentals of an education — in mental, moral, 
and manual training. Help the young to self-help- 
fulness. Take out from under them all artificial and 
unnecessary supports ; teach them self-reliance ; in- 
struct them in the value and happiness of self-earned 
wealth, and they will then have a permanent source 
of income. 

The unwise and wicked accumulation of wealth 
without a constantly increasing benevolent spirit will 
be seen in soul-shrinkage, in distrust of God, and 
wasteful distribution in the third generation, if not 
in the second, that will mean more than loss of 
money. It will be felt in indifference toward God's 



Lessons Learned Too Late. 165 

children of misfortune ; of hurtful excesses in lux- 
urious living; in examples of extravagance beyond 
the means of the family of the next generation ; in 
an overestimate of world values and undervalue of 
eternal things. Lessons learned too late multiply 
in the money marts of the world. Destruction of 
property by fire and flood and famine are to be de- 
plored, but are not to be compared with the sadness 
that is seen in the wrong use of means that brings 
the owner to want in old age, or scatters it to the 
winds when death comes to settle up accounts. 
Why should not God be taken into partnership when 
wealth and worth are sought ? Why should not His 
counsel be heeded in its use and distribution? 
"Whoso hath this world's goods, and seeth his 
brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of 
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God 
in him?" "Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of 
the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be 
heard." 

4. Lessons of Graciousness. 

To be discreet in speech and conduct should be 
the desire and effort of every social being. The 
unkind word or ungracious act, like an arrow speed- 
ing away from the bow and the archer, can not be 
recalled. How much of regret, how much of sorrow, 



166 Greatness of Little Things. 

such thoughtless, heartless actions have caused! 
The scandal-monger is not a murderer, yet he way- 
lays the innocent and unsuspecting, robs them of 
their best ornaments of a good name, assassinates 
reputation, ruins character, and is in turn an object 
of ill-repute among his fellows. 

"Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth ! 
And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity : so is 
the tongue among our members, that it defileth the 
whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature ; 
and it is set on fire of hell." Easy indeed is it to 
scatter to the winds the seeds of the thistle, but im- 
possible to gather up again all these germs of an 
evil crop. 

The cultivation of a gracious spirit goes far 
toward abating the strife and contention of the 
world. Grievous words stir up strife. One is not 
a hypocrite because he hesitates to say all that might 
be said upon every occasion ; for silence, at times, 
is golden. The least said, the sooner mended. To 
be able to refrain from harsh and unkind criticism 
is far easier than to attempt the recall or secure the 
forgiveness for saying what ought not to have been 
spoken. Seal thy lips, if poison be on thy tongue. 
Put a guard over thy words lest they lead thee a 
sad chase. Learn to sweeten thy spirit if thou 
wouldst master thy speech. Who has not lost much 



Lessons Learned Too Late. 167 

out of life — a loss beyond recovery — by the churlish 
action of the ungracious soul ? Friends become few, 
enemies multiply, when there is no honey in the 
word, and only a sting in the speech. 

Too late in life has the lesson and its value been 
learned, of graciousness, to be an effective force in 
many a soul left to nurse regrets in solitude and 
sorrow. 

5. Lessons of the Christ-life. 

More valuable than temperance, social purity, 
material conquest, and even graciousness itself, is 
the gift of the Christ-life, which may not be appre- 
ciated until it is too late. 

To all men there comes a call to righteousness. 
All history and human experience, all nature, all 
visions of the poets and seers and statesmen, all 
voices of the Spirit and speech of the Infinite One, 
teach, exhort, and plead that this truth be accepted 
and obeyed. In opposition to all these entreaties, in 
spite of love and law and learning, mankind has 
taken advantage of the liberty of the human will, 
and made it license to defy truth and reason and life 
and God. But, after all, such liberty is limited, such 
license is within bounds, and, when too late, the les- 
son is learned between hard lines, and the loss sus- 
tained is irreparable. 



168 Greatness of Little Things. 

Can we be rich without God? Men have tried 
it. Parks and palaces have been multiplied, fertile 
acres have increased in number, and wealth in bonds 
and banks and buildings has abounded. To the self- 
satisfied and greatly gratified soul has come the com- 
placent exhortation : "Thou hast much goods laid 
up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and 
be merry." But the "many years" were soon, at the 
very longest, at an end, and as the pauper and the 
beggar, the body of the princely one must lie in the 
narrow cell and be forgotten. 

Can we have knowledge without God? Men 
have ignored and defied God, yet have succeeded in 
knowing much of the world; of the earth beneath; 
of the starry heavens above; of man, his history, 
thought, and emotions and desires; but, with all his 
learning, made to admit a limit to his thought away 
in the dim mist of the Morning, and in the gathering 
clouds of the Evening of human life. 

Can men be happy without wealth, without learn- 
ing, without God? Men have been poor and igno- 
rant and defiant, and yet have lived out a round of 
pleasurable excitement, existing within themselves 
and without God. Narrow, sensual, selfish souls ! 
But these, too, have died within the walls of a very 
limited life. Did they know or care of wealth un- 
limited beyond the grave; of knowledge infinite in 



Lessons Learned Too Late. 169 

a school of unsurpassed facilities in the higher 
realm ; of pleasures for evermore at the right hand 
of the Father? When they considered all this, it 
was too late. It overwhelmed their petty posses- 
sions, their little learning, their simple sensuousness, 
with the rejected splendor of things to come. 

The choice that is restricted to the narrow life 
of time and sense compels the soul, in its narrow cell, 
to eat itself away, and yet live hungry forever in 
sight of abundance. Limits are upon everything 
that does not reach out after God. 

In order to lift the horizon of a sin-cursed world, 
God came to us in the person of His Son, and lived 
with us the God-life. He showed us the Father, 
and, by His life, love, and sacrifice, lifted the pall 
of that death that separates, and lengthened infinitely 
the vision of soul possibilities. He went back to 
His Father, but sent His Spirit to abide with us — 
Comforter, Teacher, Life-Giver. Shall we accept 
or reject His office, work, and ministry? Shall we 
bid Him wait our convenience ? He is long-suffering, 
patient, not willing that any should perish; but He 
will not always strive, or yearn, or wait. "To-day, 
if ye hear His voice, harden not your hearts;" do 
not presume upon the morrow ; it may never come. 
"O that men were wise, that they understood this, 
that they would consider their latter end!" "At 



170 Greatness of Little Things. 

midnight there was a cry made: Behold the Bride- 
groom cometh, go ye out to meet Him. . . . 
They that were ready went in with Him to the mar- 
riage, and the door was shut." 
Sang Tennyson sadly : 

" Late, late, so late ! and dark tbe night and chill. 
Late, late, so late ! But we can enter still. 
Too late, too late ! ye can not enter now. 

No light had we : for that we do repent ; 

And learning this, the Bridegroom will relent 

Too late, too late ! ye can not enter now. 

No light : so late ! and dark and chill the night ! 
O let us in, that we may find the light ! 
Too late, too late : ye can not enter now. 

Have we not heard the Bridegroom is so sweet? 
O let us in, tho' late, to kiss his feet ! 
No, no ; too late ! ye can not enter now.' ' 

"O that thou hadst hearkened to my command- 
ments ! Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy 
righteousness as the waves of the sea." 



MAR 11 1905 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS - 

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